Chapter 44: Ivy

When I called home from Denver on Wednesday night, Fran explained that Sheila was on an airplane bound for L.A. Apparently, the museum where she worked had a chance to borrow some rare Chinese art for a year in trade for various carved Italian marbles dating back to the dawn of civilization that the Boston Museum owned.

Sheila took every job assignment with great enthusiasm and also care in terms of getting the best for the Museum. These swaps of treasures between museums were a big deal. She’d already developed a worldwide network of friends who were curators at other museums and spent part of each day talking to them and arranging interesting displays and trades that were usually win-win situations for both museums.

I called Sheila’s cellphone, not expecting an answer, but I left a long ‘I love you’ message for her, and told her I’d try to check in with her the next day. Fran thought Sheila might be on the west coast for ten days or so. In my message, I suggested that Sheila think about swinging through Denver on the way home to see some of my friends in that city whom she hadn’t met yet.

Ally was off prowling with her friends that night. Given our family arrangement and open relationship, I rarely minded when any of the girls went out, even if they might hook-up with some new guy that hadn’t been on the radar screen before. After all, that was what I had ended up doing, so I never felt I could hold them to a different standard than I held myself.

Nonetheless, after the incident with Joel, any hookups that Fran, Sheila, or Ally had chosen to do so far were within our established network of friends, most often Aidan. He’d try to stay with the girls at least three nights a week, usually Tuesday through Thursday nights. The other nights he’d be with the Reddicks or Dunns at their homes in Farborough.

Other hookups were rare. Aidan had brought Chip by for two nights when Gale was out of town. Another time, Lyle had come into Cambridge for a night to join Aidan with the girls. Even Aidan was skittish about introducing new male blood into the circle since he’d been one of the people that thought Joel was acceptable.

I’d made it clear that I was comfortable with these situations, and that they didn’t need to feel any guilt for not checking with me ahead of time. I always enjoyed hearing about their assignations after they occurred, as they seemed to enjoy hearing about mine, particularly the new swing group Jane and Brady had introduced me to in Denver.

Friday, I had lunch with Jane and Marge. I was staying the weekend, planning to work on the TCI strategic planning project for the Rocky Mountain Division, and then continuing the work until the following Friday when I’d fly back home to Boston.

Jane and Marge were ecstatic that I was staying. Marge whispered to me that she expected me to be her ‘boy toy’ the rest of my visit, rending her pussy a ‘shivering mass of orgasming protoplasm’ several times a day. Jane liked the sound of that, and after repeating the phrase several times, declared that I needed to render the same service to her.

About that time Brenda joined us at our lunch table. She heard enough to suggest that I hold a small reserve to do the same to her, while Mike plundered Jane and Marge. She invited us to their home Saturday afternoon, explicitly suggesting that we stay over so we could fuck all night into Sunday. Brenda had turned out to be as big a slut as Marge and Jane, so I felt right at home with any of them, and I loved them all – with a very special place in my heart for Jane.

Jane remained trapped in the role of Acting Vice President for the Rocky Mountain Division of TCI. She firmly told the TCI president that she didn’t want the job on a fulltime basis, and that she wanted to head back east whenever possible. He wanted her in that position, so there was some sort of standoff between the two that left the status quo in place for the indefinite future.

When I was in New Jersey I continued to use Jane’s home as my home away from home. René was still a few weeks from finishing her advanced degree as a Physician’s Assistant. She’d move into the condo I shared with the sisters in Cambridge when she started her work at a hospital just outside Boston.

Jane had made it home to New Jersey once in the months she’d been in Colorado, mainly for a three-day strategic planning session at corporate headquarters. She informed me later that the session had turned out not to be strategic or about planning due to the shortsightedness of the senior executives.

She had pushed again for a broader corporate planning job, and I, of course, was interested in getting the consulting side of that job for FDC, my consulting firm. John Ringler was the TCI man knighted as the head of corporate planning, but so far his job had been wrapped up in a two-year budget cycle exercise involving the entire company; so, no strategic vision, and not much planning beyond extrapolations from the past couple of years.

Jane was thinking far ahead in grooming people to move up behind her, partly so she’d be free to move back east. In the short time she’d been in Denver, she’d been grooming Brady Burstein to head the Division. They met daily, talked about every part of the Division operations, and she often involved him in key meetings including those with major accounts. He was good with customers, too.