Chapter 1

The Litha break truly began with my left leg stuck under Bang-ja and right arm being retained with both hands by Becky. Ali ... had either fallen out of bed or got tired of the puppy pile, he had slept on a rug near us. Didn’t we get a little frisky around sunrise? I carefully extracted my stuck bits and cuddled Ali for a while. How was it I could wake up with all these hotties? Two weeks ago waking up was dreary. Shower, stick on clothes, flop into living room. Now morning was full of fun, surprises, games and love - but we’d some catching-up to do on this one. I found a robe in Bang-ja’s closet and went down to try my luck with the automatic.

Silence in the house. I touched #46 and started looking through my inbox. Mostly (blocked) requests for dates.

My coffee was gone. I set up another and peeked out of the kitchen. Winnie had had either a very good or a very bad night. She sat in a light blue-and-white wrap or sarong. I greeted her with a hug. “What do you like?”

“This morning, a triple espresso, please.”

“I’ll be back in a moment.” I made our coffees, put hers on an end-table and I sat. She picked up the cup, had a long swallow. “Thank you, Ash, that automatic...” “Is so easy to use, there are two hundred screens of help.” She laughed. “Really?” “I made that up, but the first time I got stuff out of it I couldn’t even tell it was coffee. I happen to remember that Beck’s is espresso, #5.”

The slight crinkles in the corners of Winnie’s eyes looked, uh ... impish? “I believe one of my offspring was here last night; did you send him home?” “Not a chance. He was sleeping on the floor.” She laughed. “He’s still doing that?” “You’d have to ask some of his other friends, I suppose, and I’m sailing awfully close to the wind saying no one ever fell off my futon.” She laughed. “Futon. Brilliant, why didn’t we think of that?” I must have shown my confusion because “Ali has been falling out of bed since he was six. We don’t know what prompts it but it’s a thing and has been for ... well, a decade.”

“Healthy animals move around when they sleep. Maybe Ali has a greater range of necessary motion than mattress-makers acknowledge.” “Now that’s an odd idea. A range of necessary motion?” “All perfectly falsifiabile, I simply don’t know.”

Winnie said “I’m not so sure I can think about Ali as a ‘healthy animal’.” “I definitely can. Healthy antecedents, healthy animal.”

“You may be getting a little salacious, here, young man. I believe I owe you a spanking and I bet I can do it; I also bet you would give me a licking.”

“Ms. Winifred Shigezawa”, I said, “I accept both of your bets, to be adjudicated in - let’s see ... ninety-four days.” I winked at her. “Please be on time.”

Her eyes opened wide. She inhaled, thought. “You are turning out to be tempting and dangerous. Thank you, my dear.” She rose. I caught her in a hug, making sure our nipples made contact. I kissed her. “Oh, dear, too near the fire, Ash. That was lovely. I am now fully awake.” “As am I.” She burst out laughing, shaking her head. After a minute she said “the idea my fine young son is learning all sorts of bold and exciting thinking from his friends delights me. There is change afoot, there, and it’s lovely to see him grow.”

My coffee was gone again and so was Winnie’s. I would get an Americano, no need to be all juiced when bedraggled people would be coming downstairs most of the morning. “Next?” I asked, pointing to my cup. “Oh, I’m getting better, sir. Espresso, please, but a double.” I took her cup and mine, dialed it up and had it in a minute or so. Becky had come down, wearing another of Bang-ja’s translucent robes, and she was talking to Winnie. I looked the question. “Americano, please.” So I made hers, took them in. “How come Ali was on the floor?” “He said you kicked him out of the bed.” It was cheap, she hadn’t had her coffee yet. Winnie laughed again as Becky turned red. “He’s been doing that for years”, said Winnie. “And I made up the part about talking to him. I cuddled him for a while, when he was asleep. Respiration good. Elite athlete caliber pulse, slow, strong and regular. He is fine.”

“Who’s fine?” asked Elizabeth. She and Mom had come down while we were laughing. “Ali”, said Winnie. “He fell out of bed again.” There was more laughter. I got their coffees.

I went through the kitchen, thinking of feeding people, but the refrigerator was pristine and I feared upsetting Betsy. Maybe I should... “Good morning, Ash.” “Good morning, Betsy. I realized it might disturb your circles if I were to start hunting in here.” “Thank you. Yes, I can name what’s in here down to the sesame oil. I’m surprised, though, that the pastries and tarts haven’t arrived yet.” I went out to look, no, no boxes in the locker and no sign of them anywhere else. “Oh. Street’s blocked, fallen tree.” she said. ‘Fallen tree’ around here can mean houses crushed and services out, but this one simply meant the delivery float couldn’t pass. “Can I help?” “I will see how Elizabeth wants to go forward.”

We went out and she had a brief consultation. “I’ll get started. Thank you for the offer, Ash, might I tap your shoulder if I get stuck?” “Please do, and thanks so much for last night’s extravaganza.” She smiled and chuckled a little. “It was our pleasure.”

Bouncy Bang-ja led bleary Ali into the living room. “He fell out of bed” provoked new laughter. “Dear, we’ve been talking about that ever since I found Ash here an hour ago. Tales grow with the telling.” said Winnie. She seated Ali next to Becky, went in for their coffees.

Once she’d put her coffee down she sat next to me. “Feeling ok?” I nodded, reached for and got a hug. “Never better. You?” “It’s the first real day we have OFF off in a long time, and I wonder what we should do with it.” She looked at me. “Duh, I mean besides that.” We laughed. I whispered “Ali seems slow to wake up.” “Even with my diligent effort, a romp with Ali doesn’t wake him up like a few thousand meters of swim practice. He’ll be fine, he’ll come around once the coffee hits.”

Betsy announced free-for-all and we had a disorganized but fun meal of banana pancakes, Chantilly and some berries. A lot of coffee seemed to be disappearing.

We thanked Elizabeth and Betsy, straggled back to Bang-ja’s room. We needed to shower two-by-two, four wouldn’t fit so Bang-ja and Becky had the first shift. Ali was talking about scuba, he’d been on a few dives but never certified. Once he got that PADI certification he’d be able to go just about anywhere in the Pacific and get his tanks filled. He spoke of his interest in Monterey’s kelp forests as a goal for later, and how sea lions aren’t your friends. Bang-ja and Becky came out chattering, and we took our shift. He bent down, kissed me, then put his hands on my ass. My nipples and cock stiffened; I knelt and kissed his cock and Ali petted my hair until I’d got it all down my throat; then I explored his balls with my hand while I sucked him to a soft orgasm to help him wake up.

It was a bit of a challenge to gather up clothing but Bang-ja’s laundry machine had already run this morning - still, the task of collecting up everyone’s stuff from three or four houses would take some diligence. We dressed, nothing of note except my flirt-skirt seemed wrong. I found black booty shorts, my thong, a gold belt and a crop top. After hunting vainly for Elizabeth & Co., we left her a note of thanks and I resolved to follow it up. Since Friday night we had pretty much played during all our waking hours and it had been on others’ effort.

“Bang-ja, did you notice lack-of-Diana?” “Tops get tired too. With four of them playing and she the only total top, I can see her getting exhausted. She probably needed a lot of sleep.”

We passed by the pantry for some hiking food and went up in the hills for a while, goofing off and being together. What fun goofing off is - when you have a family and some people you love playing with and plenty to talk about. We walked in the hills and wound up hungry around 1600 so we descended on my place. I went through the fridge and wound up making chicken Caesar salads we took out, with a bottle or two of a Dry Creek white, to the gazebo.

Beck asked why I had so much going on in the way of dates; I said “well, I suppose we needed to discuss this. I’m in Wonderland, and yet I’ve been sexually active for two whole weeks. I am metaphorically looking around.” “But why? This is so much beyond at least my experience I feel like staying together.”

“Have any of you had more than twenty play partners?” They all nodded. “I’ve had six, including all of us. I have been in it for two weeks and I lack your experience. I know we belong together but that is not necessarily everywhere I belong right now. I need the adventures. I need to play with people I haven’t known so long, too. I would like to keep the connection we have, but can you not remember when you were just starting out?” Ali said “yes, but this is so much better than random dating.”

“But I don’t know that, Ali, and I need to. I sense you are right but there’s a reason why you can say that and I can’t.” “Well, I don’t like missing time with all four of us, but you have a point. Just please, don’t leave me or us.” “I could do it, as easily as any of you. You know how we feel.” That resonated, I got a somewhat-reluctant agreement but the mood had darkened.

I thought the three of them would want to play anyhow but over the next half-hour I found myself alone. I hoped they felt as I did: I was sure we were friends, and lovers, at least for decades. I began re-thinking things but those connections felt not only good but right. There was a navigation problem and I lacked the experience to do it well: I resolved to get some Auntie time. I couldn’t see any reason why not to be with anyone I chose and I’d been advised to date widely.

My place was deserted at 1630, so I went through the recipe for Danni’s butter-cream cake, started it and half hour later it was baking. It was the decorations that would take some time so I resolved to try not to goof. During the baking I looked at my tablet.

Dad:

>We’ll be out late - all of us except possibly Serge, whom we left in the garage muttering about some kind of washer. He took the stuff that arrived to your room after your giddy whirl. We’re happy for you. Love -KofiGB

Eris Karlssen:

>Hi, Ash,

The boat’s in Spud Point Marina. She’s called Dream, she’s a Hinckley Bermuda 50 that has done two circumnavigations and we want to pick you up, at 0500? That way we’ll be there by sunrise and we’ll have a full day on the water.

I don’t know whether people whose skin is dark need sunscreen, but Dream has a lot of things to do aboard and most of it is in direct sunlight. Please bring at least coverage if you have any piercings - getting anything stuck on a line can result in pain and damage if that line moves; otherwise Dream is casually nude if the weather allows. Please bring a windbreaker, a warm top and some jeans, and consult the NAWS site for morning temperatures and wind speeds. 0600 at Spud Point can be foggy and windy, thus cool.

Please also bring gloves if you have some. We probably won’t need help but if you can haul lines, grind winches and help with line management it’s safer and more fun, too.

We love to eat the fish we catch and I’m good at some things but if you can make sushi please help? -ErisApple

>Hi, Eris,

I will be happy to see you at 0500 on L1/3. Thanks for the preparation guide. I have heavy clothing I will wear at my jewelry-making class, and here’s another use for them.

As it happens my brother Serge is an aspiring sushitori and I work with him. I would never try to carve up fugu - he insists it’s like playing chicken with your body and he won’t either - but should we land a tuna or similar fish I can feed us. -Achille

Real wasabi isn’t so easy to get. Serge might have, or his connections might be able to find me, a hundred grams of it. I’d get a couple kilos of Nishiki short grain and some tamari from our cupboard.

I went out to the garage - time was getting short - and Serge was cleaning up. He’d been fussing with his car’s interior and it looked like the pictures he’d shown me of the concept first shown in 1967. “You have a date, Serge.” He nodded. “May you find what you’re looking for. Come to that, I’m looking for a hundred grams or so of wasabi - going sailing with fishers.” “I have a kilo, you can have a hundred grams, no sweat.” “Thanks. I’m up early, getting picked up at 0500 on 1/3.” “Take some of the Nishiki, tamari, and make ‘em miso soup and tsukemono.” “Yes. Those in hand already.” “Then good fishing, if luck is with me I’m gone until 1/5.” “Then I hope to see you, relaxed and exhausted, on the Wednesday.” He laughed, hugged me.

So my list for Eris was: knife + sheath, tsukemono, the wasabi, the tamari, the rice...

>Hi, Eris,

Odd question for you: what kind of kitchen range have you aboard Dream, and do you have a three- or four-litre iron pot with a cover? If you don’t have the pot I will bring one. -Achille

... a bit of salt, and all the clothing. I’d bring a couple of kilos of maguro and toro ‘just in case’, in a cold chest.

An announcement from CIT: “The blabr upgrade will be downloaded from our protected server to your device. Please note and verify checksums before allowing installation; but please execute the installation by L1/8 to ensure the full suite of security upgrades are available to you. CIT are available for technical assistance as you require. - Georges Solvay, Director, Collective Information Technology.”

For some reason that reminded me to tack Campari, Dolin and ... hmm, what gin? on the pantry list. I picked Tanqueray because the name is pretty cool, having no other idea what Simon used, but Simon and Tanqueray are apparently both UK products. And - I’d almost forgotten - a blood orange. I wanted to make the fam Negronis.

Finishing Danni’s cake did take a while but I finished it and put it in the fridge with a bunch of thin cocktail picks supporting the cover.

>Dear Heidi (Glass),

I baked Danni a cake, may I bring it tomorrow around 1700? -Achille

A conservative date, so I put on some fairly challenging lingerie but wore capris and a top that only hinted at my torso’s musculature, applied make-up, put on my 75 mm heels and was ready with only a small packet of necessary items in my carrier when the CVA arrived.

Simon greeted me at their door as ‘Ms. Boakye’ and Kyche - in an equally, er, dull get-up welcomed me - yet I imagined her in her naked and excited glory and I made a little bow.

After my shoes were off Kyche asked me to lead into their dining room - where presumably the Alara family awaited. I knew the couple as Jamshid (he/him) and Sasha (she/her) Alara. Jamshid has darker skin than Kyche but lighter than mine by about the same amount. Thin, studious-looking with round glasses and alert brown eyes. Sasha is clearly Kyche’s mother - same compact muscled body and within an inch of Kyche’s height.

Kyche’s dad led us out to their deck.

Simon brought out tea in fragile-looking glasses. “Ms. Boakye, this is an Earl Grey tea, flavored with bergamot.” “Thank you, Simon.” The ‘rents picked up their glasses and I, watching Kyche, picked mine up a beat later than he, or she, or whatever. They sipped, we sipped. This ‘tea’ didn’t seem like the tea Simon had made us before, but I wasn’t about to not drink it.

“Ms. Boakye, do you happen to be related to David Acheampong? “He is, or was, my biological father.” At that they exchanged an astonished glance. “We knew her as Berenice.” As David Acheampong, he won the Fields Medal in math.” I nodded. “I intend following her interest in mathematics.”

“But this is extraordinary. You carry many resemblances of her.” “Yes, so my Auntie has said. She knew her quite well.” “And how are you progressing?” “Through differential equations as of ... O3/27, NAHS, Salem.”

“And how did you happen to win the Salem?” “A trick I found in polylog ladders. I didn’t think it was worth much but my then-teacher asked me to write it up; and she must have sent it to someone she knew.”

“Ms. Boakye, we don’t mean to grill you but we’re both mathematicians and you are on a trajectory I - and Jamshid - would have been fortunate to enjoy”, said Sasha. “Please, have you decided where you’ll take higher study?” “If the stars align, Princeton; otherwise ETH Zürich.” “No consideration of Stanford?” “None. In my opinion Stanford is today a swamp of administration and enforced conformity that’s killing creativity, just look at all the ‘surveys’ which is compilation, not original thought. Besides, I’m a Collective lifer: it means I’m blinkered and have to fix that.”

They nodded as though twinned. “Kyche, Ms. Boakye, you’ve sat through what we had intended to -not- be a grilling but it got away from us. What a fascinating start.” “Thank you, Ms. Alara...” “Sasha and Jamshid, if you please.” “Then I’m Ash. Um ... Kyche told me she and you built race car chassis...” Jamshid rolled his eyes. “You have set them off now and I won’t get a bite until 2200.” But delighted Sasha and Kyche had already jumped up. “Jami, just the quick tour, ok?” “Remember Ash is a fast study. At least no actual bending and welding until after dinner, please.”

Sasha led us into a workshop with racks of tubing and cycle frames on racks and other frames of small cars stacked on other racks and big machinery and grinders and welding stations. “Some of the welding is automatic but it’s not worth the time to program every little job so we do those by hand.”

“You won a math prize?” asked Kyche. “Yep. As I said it was an accident and I did the paper long before I heard it was worth something.” “Don’t let him kid you, Kyche. It’s a prize in a field that’s been a little under-noticed for the last few years, and that he’d be surprised he cracked a problem of that magnitude tells me it’s not his only focus - so by the way, where are you looking to concentrate?” “No idea just now. I believe that’s what undergrad is for: try things, find out what you like.” “Wish I’d done that. Good for you. Now this is the production tubing cutter and bender. It is driven off G-code which is an ancient control language. The fact it works is why it’s with us seventy years or so after it was created. Beside it is the hand bender and that is where Kyche has the feel and the precision to be, in almost every case, equal to the production machine for small runs. Here we have the transfer picker that positions elements and moves them to the production welding machine, again run by G-code.” “So where does all the G-code come from?” “Kyche, would you explain?” “I figured out a way to generate G-code from the design models because they already contain all the geometry. It had been done for flat materials but I don’t know whether there’s a 3-D one that also understands the nuances of joint preparation and welding.” “So you depict what you’re making, convert it all to code and your generator just ... does ... the things...?” They nodded. “It’s licenced in NA, Australia and a few countries in Europe. We do this stuff because it’s fun.”