Gift-Wrapped & Just Desserts

Just Desserts is a satirical short story of greed, lust, envy-and revenge taken by a Forbes writer against his best friends, the men for whom greed is a religion, and their wives who marry them just for that trait. Starting at a small ski mountain in Vermont, a clique of rich businessmen gloat to the Forbes writer that they made huge profits on an insider-trading deal (from which they consciously excluded him). When he expresses his anger and disdain, the writer is threatened. The writer decides to call in a favor from the owner of a well-known (Mafia-run) Italian restaurant hot-spot in New York City, who owed him a favor because he did not write a story about the restaurant-and together they turn the greed-driven couples' lives upside down... Until everyone gets their just desserts! The main characters include: Fred, who's start-up high-tech company is at the center of the insider trading deal, and his emasculating wife Marilyn; Sam, the banned stock broker (whose mother-in-law supports him), and his doting wife Cheryl; and David, the Forbes writer, who's lust for revenge drives the story. Two other characters occasionally appear -- Moe, a cheap multi-millionaire investment banker, and Andy, a music impresario who regularly pumps iron and women. These stories are about revenge, which while often sweet, comes at a cost. Gift Wrapped is about a philandering father who sleeps with a beautiful young woman-and then fixes his son up to marry her! Just Desserts is about a group of friends who engage in insider-stock trading, but not only leave one friend out of the deal, but brag to him about how much money they made, prompting him to seek revenge. Both of these stories were inspired by true events, but the stories and characters are fictional.