Unnecessary Infidelity - Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

THE ORIGIN OF THE REYNOLDS

Dylan Reynolds, a tall, athletic, handsome white man with black hair and light eyes, a native of Sacramento, California, graduated from high school at age 17 and got into the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in the school of Petroleum Engineering.

Dylan was the only child of a low-income family who worked to live and pay for his studies, his mother and father died together in a fire that occurred in the factory where they both worked and for that reason he was taken into state custody and admitted to a care home for abandoned children,  there he remained until he fulfilled the educational program and even though he had not reached the statutory age of majority, thanks to his good behavior and his excellent academic record, he was recommended by his professors to opt for a full scholarship at the University of Los Angeles.

Jackie Silverman, a tall white woman with a spectacular body, long light brown hair and big brown eyes, a native of Los Angeles, California, graduated from high school at age 17 and entered the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in the school of Advertising and Marketing.

Jackie was the youngest of three siblings whose life was made impossible by her two older brothers, but who loved her very much and always did their best to please her.  Ashley two years older than her and Patrick the oldest of the three, five years apart.  His father, a house builder and his mother who owned a flower shop, made the family remain within an economically stable and very loose circle.

At UCLA, when Dylan was already a little over two years old, he met Jackie who was just entering and was a little disoriented in the library.   Dylan helped her orient herself and politely took order.  As Jackie was a newcomer, she had not yet managed to make friends and Dylan's offer served to make a friendship between them so special that it made them inseparable.   Every time Jackie had a problem, she went to Dylan to consult him and between them they looked for a way to solve it.  It was very common to see them strolling through the halls and areas of the university campus holding hands, lying on the grass of the gardens or attending college games, seminars and concerts together.

After a couple of years, during a trip to the beach promoted by the university for freshmen, which Jackie and Dylan attended as members of the escort staff, Dylan proposes to Jackie to be his girlfriend to which she accepted without hesitation.  From then until Dylan was about to graduate, they were formal boyfriends and during some days of the holidays Jackie would invite Dylan to visit his family.

Since they became a couple and even more so when it was known that they were boyfriends they became the envy of their friends.  Everything was perfect between them.  When Dylan was about to graduate, he managed to do his internships at the remaining Motiva Enterprise LLC refinery in Port Arthur, Texas and was due to move to that city for the stipulated time.   Dylan left and Jackie stayed in college finishing her last year of studies that demanded a lot of commitment and work.

During the time of the internship, Dylan and Jackie kept in touch by email, telling each other every night what they had done during the day and helping them keep the flame of their love burning and appease the anxiety caused by time and distance.

When Dylan finished the internships, as he no longer had subjects to study and only had to attend his graduation ceremony, he took the opportunity given to him by his supervisor and applied for an engineering position in the company.

The recommendation of Dylan's supervisor did his part and the application for the position was accepted and he was allowed to return to college to complete the graduation requirements and that upon obtaining his degree he could return to the refinery to formally take over his position.

Dylan returned to Los Angeles and the first thing he did was look for Jackie in his university residence to tell him the good news since he had not mentioned it in the emails to give him the surprise personally when he saw her when he returned.

Jackie, upon learning of Dylan's job offer, became very happy for him, but at the same time very sad and worried because she knew that this time, she would leave Los Angeles and maybe not return.   Thinking about it made Jackie very sad, but she did her best to maintain an apparent good mood so that Dylan wouldn't notice.

When Dylan graduated and the time came when he had to return to the refinery for his work, he decided not to wait any longer and propose to Jackie during a celebration in a bar with their closest friends and to which he invited Jackie's older brother.   Amazed by Dylan's proposal and all the celebration she had organized with the presence of her brother Patrick and her sister Ashley, she could not help but feel very flattered and excited.

“Yes, I accept... of course I will marry you,” Jackie replied, hanging from Dylan's neck to kiss him in front of all the attendees.

Dylan handed her an engagement ring and promised that he would return to get married when she had finished her career and together, they would go to Texas.

So it was, Dylan moved to Houston, Texas and shortly after Jackie had graduated, he returned to Los Angeles to marry her as promised.

The wedding was held on a Friday afternoon, in Los Angeles and the ceremony was officiated by a priest friend of Jackie's family in a small, but very nice chapel in which few people could fit, but with enough capacity to house all the love that existed between them and that they had cultivated for years.

After the ceremony they went to Jackie's parents' house where the rest of the guests were waiting for them with a surprise banquet planned by them with the help of their older brother and wife.

A few days after the marriage, both went to Houston, Texas where Dylan had a small house that had been provided by the company to live, since he was considered foreign personnel and by contract required a place to live.

Shortly after settling in Houston, Jackie got a job in an advertising agency in which she stood out a lot and managed to get a good salary and very good commissions that together with Dylan's served to buy the house of her dreams in a beautiful suburban place in Houston that Jackie liked very much.

With a little effort they managed to acquire a house in Kingwood, a suburban area just 20 minutes from downtown Houston, it is the first master city of planned construction, it is called by the residents of the area, the bubble, where there is everything, you are looking for or need, both private and public schools, restaurants, clothing and shoe stores, cinemas, supermarkets and hardware stores.

After some time, they had already achieved good economic stability, Jackie was recognized in the agency after having won an advertising campaign from a potentially important client and Dylan had been promoted to supervisor.

One day, Jackie goes to the doctor for some discomfort and after doing some tests, the doctor gives her the excellent news:

“Madam, you are pregnant... congratulations.”

Jackie couldn't believe it, she was excited and went home, she had to tell Dylan, but Dylan's work now after his promotion forced him to stay on the floor for 7 continuous days, which meant he wouldn't be back for two days.   I wouldn't tell her anything until she arrived, that would be a surprise that she was sure would make him very happy.

The two days passed and Jackie's emotion was so visible that at work colleagues asked her if something was wrong with her, because her change was very evident.   When Dylan arrived in the evening, Jackie was waiting for him very well dressed with a beautiful dinner and a bottle of wine.  Dylan surprised, but without imagining what happens sits at the table and enjoys dinner.  Jackie at one point takes the glass of wine and stares at Dylan gives him the news of her pregnancy and he gets so excited that he jumps for joy and jumps like crazy as he hugs Jackie screams:

“I'm going to be a dad... I'm going to be a dad.”

During Jackie's months of pregnancy everything went well, but as the due date approached, she had to leave her job at the agency and stay at home for safety and medical recommendations.  Once the baby was born, he named him Erick, Erick Reynolds.

The birth of baby Erick did not allow Jackie to return to work, so she was forced to quit and devote herself to raising her son.  This didn't worry her in the slightest as she was happy with her new role as a new mom.

Dylan's work regime at the plant was very difficult and the 7 days he stayed away from his family were unbearable for him, but when he got home, he did his best to make those 7 days off perfect and wonderful for everyone.  They would go for a walk, go to restaurants, do grocery shopping together, Dylan would feed the baby, and they would all sleep together in bed.

When they managed to get the baby to sleep for a while, they took the opportunity to show each other how much they loved each other and sat on the sofa in the living room to watch TV while Dylan hugged Jackie and caressed her in the hair.   The scene was similar to that of two Australian parakeets in a cage.

Jackie didn't mind quitting her job, she felt comfortable and satisfied with her life and her baby filled it to such an extent that she didn't have time to miss anything about her previous life.

When Dylan left for the plant and Jackie was left alone, often Betsy Wilson, a friend of Jackie's from the advertising agency would come to visit her and they spent a lot of time together.   Work and many similar tastes made them very good friends.   Betsy was a woman ten years older than Jackie, white, of short stature and skinny build, who was divorced as a result of an infidelity committed by her husband and who has since remained single, not because she wanted to but because she had had very bad luck with her partners.

Erick grew up and when he was 4 years old, he was enrolled in school and Jackie believed that would give him a little free time, but it was not so, now he had to spend time guiding the child in the tasks and attending the constant meetings of parents of the school where they always assigned tasks for the benefit of the educational community for not being a working mother.

Everything remained the same, nothing changed over time, Dylan kept moving up the ranks from experience and the love between them remained the same, they could not be separated without thinking about each other and when they met again, sparks almost jumped between the two.   They were a perfect match.

One day, Dylan returns home in a rest period with his friend Jack Allen, a tall and thick man a little older than Dylan, but very nice and joking, accustomed to joking about the situations that occurred in the plant to his companions.   He had a much higher position than Dylan's and thanks to his recommendation was that he was hired, so they became very close friends and together they watched their backs on the plant.

“Hi Jackie, how did you spend the week?” Dylan asks.”

“Very well all quiet.”

“And where is Erick?“

“He arrived tired from school and fell asleep for a while”

“Look, I brought Jack with me.”

“Hi Jack, how is Helen?” say hello Jackie.

“I guess it's okay,” Jack replies.

“Helen will be looking for him around here because Jack's car didn't want to start,” Dylan explains.

“Ah well, do you want to have a drink while waiting Jack?” Jackie asks.

“No thanks Jackie,” Jack says, “well some water would suffice.

Jackie heads to the kitchen and pours a glass of water from the fridge while Jack makes comments to Dylan.

“Friend, I don't know how you keep yourself away from home for so long having a woman as beautiful as Jackie,” Jack says jokingly, “with so many men out there able to try to conquer her.”

“Friend, peace of mind is given to you by confidence,” Dylan says confidently.

“Friend, with a woman like that, I wouldn't live quietly away from home,” Jack says, “I would even distrust my friends.”

Jackie returns from the kitchen with the glass of water and brings it to Jack.

“Here you have Jack.”

“Thank you, Jackie, you are very kind.”

As soon as he has started drinking the water when a car horn sounds outside the house, Jack looks out the window and says:

“It's Helen, it's already arrived.”

“Well buddy, remember this is your home,” Dylan says.

“I know, buddy, see you later Jackie.”

“Goodbye Jack, say hello to Helen from me,” Jackie says.

Once Jack has left and they are left alone in the living room, Dylan comments to Jackie:

“Love, we will be sent to a course for a month in Saudi Arabia.”

“Saudi Arabia?” exciting, says Jackie.

“And when should they leave? “

“We don't know yet, we were only informed that we were selected to attend the course.”

“Selected? That means they have you well qualified.”

“Yes, and everything, thanks to Jack.”

“When you come back, they will surely increase your salary.”

“I don't know... maybe... you have to wait.”

Two weeks pass and Dylan is told that he must take the flight to Saudi Arabia in three days and is given permission to leave the plant to fix his things.   Dylan returns home and tells Jackie the news.

“What a good love, everything is for your career.”

“I don't feel good about leaving you here alone with the child for 30 days.”

“Don't worry, we will be fine, and when you come back, we will be waiting for you.”

The day comes to leave and Dylan says goodbye to Jackie and Erick at the door of the house. In the parking lot is the company's transport that will take you to the airport to take the flight to Saudi Arabia.   Dylan hugs and kisses his family, boards the bus and from his seat, through the window, beckons to the two as he walks away from the house.

Those 30 days have been very strong for Jackie, the first time she has separated from her husband for so long, even when she keeps in touch with him, knowing that he is so far away makes her feel incomplete.   The same happens to Dylan, work and occupations do not prevent him from thinking about his family, he had never been separated from them for so long.

Time slowly passes and Dylan has returned home after a very long plane ride.  The plant has given him a few days off and he must join the work early the following Monday.   He has less than a week to be with his family and plans to make the most of it.

After a week of rest comes Monday and very early in the morning Dylan says goodbye to Jackie who has in his arms little Erick to go to the plant as usual for a week.

Erick, during all that previous week he has been very sick with a very strong flu that affected his respiratory system and almost turned into pneumonia that required hospital care and treatment with antibiotics for three days.

“Dylan, I wouldn't want you to leave and leave me alone with the child in these conditions,” Jackie says.

“Love, I have duties to fulfill in the plant and Erick is already much better.”

“But if something happens to him? What am I going to do by myself? “

“Don't worry love, nothing will happen and I'll keep an eye on you,” Dylan says, “I'll ask Jack's wife to visit you often and see if you need anything.”

Despite all of Jackie's pleas, Dylan insists on going to work to fulfill his commitments scheduled for that week.

At the plant, when Dylan arrives, the operator on duty informs him about a failure that has been presenting the cooling system of Stage 2 of the plant, to which Dylan responds:

“Have you already passed the written report?”

“The engineer was informed and he said he would take care of it personally.”

“Well let me check if it was processed and plan the service.”

That same afternoon Dylan stops by the operations office and asks about the failure report and the schedule for repairs to the on-call manager.

“Could you please check if a failure report has already been processed in Stage 2?“

The manager checks and does not get anything so he presumes that he was prosecuted and should be in operations as is the custom on many occasions due to the negligence of the operators on duty.

Dylan heads to operations and when he goes down the aisle, he crosses paths with one of the workers.

“Engineer, they request it in the Stage 2 office,” the worker tells Dylan.

“Thank you, I'm going right away.”

Dylan decides to go to the office indicated by the worker immediately.   Upon arrival he finds the operator very altered by the temperature and pressure values in several of the indicators on the boards.

“Engineer, look at this,” says the operator pointing to the instruments, “I have days reporting that the system is failing and they have not taken any action.”

“Yes, they already reported it to me when I arrived at the guard and I was going to the operations office to know the status of the report.”

“It's the first time they've taken so long to fix a fault”

“That's what I want to find out,” Dylan says.

“The engineer on call last week doesn't give me much confidence, he's new and he doesn't seem to know what he's doing,” says the operator.

“Yes? I don't know him, I just know he was transferred from another plant,” Dylan explains.

Dylan leaves and heads back to the operations office.  To go there you must pass very close to the cooling radiator and decide to check the fault it.   Upon arriving at the site, the workers, with their vast experience in the operation of the plant, inform him in which part of the system they presume that the problem originates and one of them offers to guide him to the site.

“Engineer, if you want to see for yourself, I take it,” says the worker.

“Come on, tell me where the problem is,” Dylan asks.

Both go to the service corridor 2C, followed by the crew of workers and when they arrive, they go up the stairs to approach the site of the failure, in a pipe system that is located about 12 meters high, which runs parallel to one of the distillers of stage 2 of the complex.

As they go up Dylan perceives a particular vibration in the pipes surrounding the staircase and an excess of caloric radiation, from years of experience in the plant he knows that it is not something normal.

“This is not normal,” Dylan says aloud, “I've never felt this vibration before, let alone this heat.”

When he reaches the end of the ladder, Dylan looks closely at the valves of the pipes and notices that one of them is letting out a liquid that is falling on the radiator pipes.

"The problem is in this high-pressure valve,” says Dylan pointing to one of them, "it must have been,” said Dylan pointing to one of them, "it must have been clogged and is letting out part of the fuel, you have to ask for the replacement, but in the meantime, you have to prevent it from continuing to leak the fuel.”

The worker signals to the others who stayed down, at the foot of the ladder to raise the tools.   In a few minutes there are several workers on the platform trying to adjust the valve and Dylan observes them carefully, but for some reason one of them drops one of the tools from above and it hits one of the high-pressure pipes hard, piercing it and letting out a large jet of steam that hits directly on one of the faces of the radiator causing it to explode, which generates a chain reaction that goes up the pipes to the top of the maintenance scaffolding.   The sequence of explosions affected part of the facilities and the shock wave generated by one of them threw several workers and Dylan who were at the top of the stairs into the air.   Several of the workers fell when the structure collapsed and others were thrown into the water tank, Dylan was detached from the ladder and thrown on a tangle of pipes conducting that section of the plant, falling in a very bad way and being injured in very bad conditions.

The plant's contingency plans were immediately activated and firefighters came to rescue the workers and Dylan who was flown by helicopter to a clinic in Houston unconscious.

Jackie was informed of what happened and immediately went to the clinic and one of the doctors who treated Dylan's case gave her the preliminary report.

“Mrs. Reynolds, your husband has fractures in an arm and a leg, not counting the large number of bruises he has all over his body, that would not be serious, but he suffered a severe blow to the head and bleeding in the genital area.  He is now having a CT scan to determine the extent of the damage that may have occurred as a result of the blow to the head.”

“But can I see him doctor?” Jackie asks worried and nervously, “Are you awake? “

“At this moment he is unconscious and will be transferred to surgery as soon as we have the results of the CT scan.”

“But will it be, okay?” Jackie asks, “Tell me the truth”

“We can't say it yet, we must wait for the results, but rest assured that we are doing everything necessary.”

Time passes and Jackie is desperate, she has not yet been able to see Dylan. About two hours later, the doctor reunites with Jackie and informs her of Dylan's situation.

“Mrs. Reynolds, we already have the results of the CT scan and it shows only a strong contusion, but there is no damage so right now you are being taken to surgery to repair the fractures.  She can rest assured.”

“Thank you so much doctor,” Jackie says, but she can't help but care about her husband.

Three hours later Jackie receives the news that Dylan has already come out of the surgery and that he will be left in recovery for a few more hours to wait for him to wake up and then take him to his room.

A little more than 11:00 at night, Dylan was transferred to his room and finally Jackie, after a day of tension and long waits could see him.

Dylan's hospitalization lasted 26 days and he was discharged with an absolute rest prescription for several months until his leg and arm healed and he could remove his casts and attend therapy.

Dylan was taken home by ambulance and with the help of paramedics was taken to his room.   During all that time that lasted his recovery, Jackie dedicated herself to taking care of him and pampering him.

Three months have passed and Dylan goes to a doctor's office to see if the casts could be removed.   In that consultation the doctor talks to Dylan and Jackie and explains that due to the strong blow suffered in their genitals it was very likely that he had had some kind of permanent damage and advised them to visit Dr. Alan Collins, a doctor specializing in male reproductive organs for an evaluation.

Two months later, Dylan could already walk relatively well and his arm was already moving it without problems, but he began to present pains in his genitals so he decided to go to a consultation with the doctor who recommended him.

In Alan Collins' office, Dylan undergoes a series of tests and are now waiting for the doctor to inform them of the results and clinical diagnosis.

“Mr. Reynolds, we have bad news for you,” says Dr. Collins.

“What do I have doctor?”

“Unfortunately, you suffered irreversible and irreparable damage to certain areas of your testicles that will make it impossible for you to father children from now on.”

“But can't be operated doctor?” Jackie asks.

“No, by falling on the tubes in the way you fell, it caused the detachment with total damage of a duct that is called the epididymis and that is where the sperm leave for the vas deferens.,” explains the doctor showing a diagram on the wall, “I am very sorry, but in this case, we cannot do anything.”

That news made a strong impression on Dylan and Jackie who had planned to have a family with three children, just as they had talked about it before they got married.

“It doesn't matter love,” Jackie says to encourage Dylan, “we have Erick and the most important thing is that you are alive.”

Over the next few months Dylan underwent an intense rehabilitation program to get his legs and arm back to full function and he could walk smoothly.

Dylan was compensated by the company and continued to rest for four more months until he was able to return to work.

In total, the accident kept Dylan almost a year unable to attend his work and Jackie during all that time was completely dedicated to taking care of him and his little Erick.

Once Dylan joined the plant, he was forced to do office work as a disciplinary measure until the accident investigations were over which were being conducted by a private company contracted by the insurance as that accident had cost the company a lot of money.  After many meetings and interviews, Dylan nearly lost his job and was accused of recklessness and causing the accident.

A last-minute information revealed that the fault was the inspector engineer who, due to inexperienced and negligence, did not perform the due routine preventive maintenance corresponding to the period and had not formalized the report of failures that is mandatory to present when receiving and delivering a guard.  Dylan was thus exonerated of the charges and reinstated in his post.

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