Sure Stella hay have been naive when it came to Big Oil or the politics of big business and the corporate boardroom, but she knew how business in general worked because she successfully ran the strip club by herself.
Also, there were some people at the Corporation who tried to take advantage of Stella in the beginning, but Stella had a street smarts about her and a way of detecting bullshit that people underestimated and she immediately saw through those individuals and groups and turned their tricks back on them.
Stella definitely had a way of managing people and a certain demeanor about her and the way she carried herself, that let it be known in no uncertain terms, she was clearly in charge.
She took lessons from Philip’s way of thinking in his martial arts training and had chosen to learn and embrace the same skills of disciplined control through cold steel and not heated anger. As a result, the people who had tried to take advantage of Stella for their own gain, thought long and hard about trying to cross her again and chose to embrace her leadership.
So in short, Stella ended up being a Big Oil executive on Monday through Friday during the day and an independent entrepreneur and entertainer on Friday and Saturday nights, a life which she was good at balancing and thoroughly enjoyed and thrived, becoming even more successful.
Robert finally set aside a 25 million dollar trust for Phillip for college and/or personal living expenses accessible at 18. This trust would pay Phillip an annual stipend of 250,000 per year(after taxes) on a monthly basis until his death, then it would pass to any heir or heirs he had.
Anyhow, back to the main part of the story. Finally after 45 minutes of driving, Stella and Phillip arrived home. Stella backed her Mustang up into the garage and lowered the garage door. Phillip was getting a bit nervous and excited at the same time because he knew what was coming up, Stella’s birthday surprise to him.
Stella and Phillip carried the packages from the sex shop as well as the Apple store into the house. Most of the stuff they sat on the counter but Stella took the two small packages and Phillip got the three wardrobe boxes and followed Stella upstairs to the “forbidden” room.
“Well here we are sweetheart,” Stella said with a smile. “Are you ready for this?”
“About as ready as I am going to be,” Phillip replied with a nervous laugh.
“Then let’s do it,” Stella replied and with that she opened the door.
The room was set up just like a strip club and just like Phillip remembered it. In the back of the room from where Stella and Phillip looked in was a T-shaped stage about knee high(approximately 18 inches) from the floor. The stage ran across the room about 15 feet from one side to another and was about three feet wide and the T-part jutted up from the middle another 6 feet towards where Stella and Phillip were standing.
On the stage was a stripper’s pole running from floor to ceiling. It had the capability to light up. Along the top of the ceiling were 4 spotlights pointed towards different directions of the stage and the back wall of the stage were mirrors.