Chapter 4: Formalizing the Household

Security comes first from inside of you. Then, if you are very lucky, you will be in a position to find other people who also possess that same sort of security and build some sort of family or community as a team.”

Anthony D. Ravenscroft, Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless and Hopeful: An Introduction on Polyamory{br}

Setting up a polyamorous household definitely has its challenges. Personally, I am quite aware that there’s just so much that one man can do. As erotic as I find watching women play with one another in a group, sometimes I miss being able to watch heterosexual scenes, as politically incorrect as that observation may be.

“Recruiting” may not be the best word, but it also isn’t that wrong. In today’s society, it can be difficult to have a total separation between work and private lives. Molly Anne met Rachel at work. Several of us met Joyce through her professional work. We all want to consider Scarlett, but at least for Rachel and Molly Anne, that’s someone they know through work.

Some might say that flight attendants have more flexible work arrangements than people in offices, but I’m not so sure about that. I have colleagues whom I consider friends.

Apropos flight attendants, Molly Anne was burning out in her job. Rachel, without much seniority, expected to be laid off soon. Both of them had things to contribute to the household. Besides their skill at cunnilingus, both had extensive language skills. Rachel was an LPN and EMT. “I come from a big mixed family. While I may be submissive sexually, I can be adequately dominant when running the kitchen.’

“Footnote the idea of logging all our skills, and perhaps both recruiting family members with ones that we need, but also the possibility of having permanent or even live-in staff.”

We had met Scarlett briefly, when she saved the day in returning Vanessa’s toy bag. She turned out to be extremely pleasant and compatible in the coming-home orgy. We wanted to see more of her and invited her back.

Scarlett

Sometimes, I connect to someone even with no prior contact. Oh, this was true of Rachel, but she was there with Molly Anne. Scarlett, however, connected initially both on appearance and personality, and then with wild sexuality. Along with the sexuality was a great deal of humor and style, which made me, want to know her better. Vanessa had the same intuition.

I’ve heard that Dolly Parton has a wonderful sense of humor, which, in part, is directed at her carefully built image. Scarlett also had an image, which, indeed, started out as Dolly-based. She had very big hair and very big breasts.

When we sat down to talk with Scarlett, she indeed liked to quote Ms. Parton. “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb - and I’m not blonde either.”

“People, I’m a little different than Dolly. My hair is blonde, but dyed, and not usually as big as I can tease it. My boobs are naturally large but not huge. I don’t shave completely but leave a landing strip. If you get to see it, I trust you enough to accept that I’m not a true blonde. As Dolly says, though, it costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”

I grinned. “Really good cheap is sexy.”

Scarlett told us, “I was a cheerleader, which can be one part of being the good sort of Southern Belle. As cheerleading gets to the higher levels -- college and professional sports -- it’s quite a bit different from the cliques you might have encountered in high school. Depending on the program, it may be mostly dance, or it may be a support as challenging as gymnastics. In either case, though, it’s a team. The cheerleaders support one another. If someone has trouble with a dance routine, it’s better to get her to improve than to kick her out.

“I’m not sure I’d ever want to be a cheerleader for a pro team, at least in the NFL. There, it’s pure business and the girls get exploited. They protect the image, and sorry, one reason for being close to the athletic team is to be able to fuck athletes.

“Liberal arts and sometimes even arts education go with Southern Belle. Languages fit in there. For me, French, Spanish, a couple of dialects of Arabic, and modern Hebrew.”

“To be honest, I did get away from pure liberal arts, although my family didn’t fully get that. By then, I was majoring in area studies for the Middle East, and eventually had to cut back on the cheerleading, due to other priorities--something you might not expect.”

“What was that?”

“Air Force ROTC. I went into the Air Force after college and spent six years in intelligence, getting out as a captain. I took on the flight attendant job because I wanted to do more travel without constraints. I had some high clearances but hadn’t been exposed to enough of the super-classified material that I had long-term travel restrictions. Oh, I still was a college athlete, as a fencer. I got interested in the history of bladed weapons, and, if it ever comes to that, I can be quite nasty with knives.”

This was a side of Scarlett that none of us had suspected. “Scarlett, if you’re interested, there may be a whole new set of opportunities. Here in DC, there’s an increasing market niche for what I’ll call custom commercial intelligence for corporations. We already have a fair range of language skill. I do have some intelligence analysis background. Adding you could make us a lot stronger, with specialized services from Proteus Labs. For example, we’ve got some people that are quite good at simulation and modeling.”

I laughed a little. “Y’know, I read some science fiction, which I’d have to call dystopic, in which an active sex life could cost you a TS/SCI clearance. Glad that’s just a nightmare.”

Rachel looked up. “Victor, somehow I forgot to tell you that I also have conversational Hebrew and Arabic, and a smattering of Farsi.”

Jill hadn’t told us of her range “French, Swedish plus understandable Norwegian and Danish, German.”

Scarlett was DC-based, but just shared a month-to-month apartment with assorted flight attendants. We agreed on her becoming a long-term guest for now, and aside from wonderful sex, work with us in exploring the idea of a private intelligence organization. That might draw on Proteus Labs for some resources, but at first, I saw it as based here, and a separate organization.

Thinking of work

I realized that there was far too much separation between my personal offices at home, and my work at Proteus Labs. True, few people at Proteus knew that I had majority ownership. They assumed I was a senior contributor.

At home, it may well be that Vanessa will shift out of her accounting firm and become our financial manager as well as doing some private practice. Jill is already my editor and research associate, as well as someone who can generate research reports.

At work, I have an assortment of colleagues and assistants. Some were independent contributors, while others helped me be more productive. It occurred to me that some of the independent contributors, and maybe new graduates, might be interested in our scene. In the assistant category, my closest office helper was Caroline O’Leary. While she was educated in music and had an MFA in piano performance, she had moved to being a reference librarian in music, and then a wide range of topics. I trusted her completely to find information with only general guidance. Like Jill, she was an editor. Jill was probably the stronger editor and Caroline the stronger researcher and information organizer. There really wasn’t any reason that they shouldn’t work together.

I also was thinking of Sylvette, a computer technician and junior programmer, but I wasn’t sure if the drama that tended to surround her would disqualify her for the house. Mike, however, was a fine candidate.

Mike and the dive bar

One of the new PhD’s, Mike Fournier, was very, very, smart, but I had the impression that he was hesitant with women. From my perspective, he was quite good looking, although on the short side -- maybe 5’6” or so. I invited him to a local place after work, Joe’s Pub, to meet some of the crew: Vanessa, Rachel, and Molly Anne. He was quite impressed by them. All three wore short Units outfits, not quite as provocative as clubwear, but definitely making it clear that these were stunning ladies. Molly Anne was in red, Vanessa in green, and Rachel in purple.

I sensed that Mike was hesitant, at least in front of Vanessa, to show too much interest in the other women. He also wasn’t sure how to respond to Vanessa’s flirtations, since he thought of her as “Victor’s Wife’.

We hoped the overall ambience would encourage him to relax. Joe’s met most of the criteria for a dive bar, except that some of the food was damn good, and there were a couple of quality microbrews on tap. “Mike, we aren’t at work. I’d like you to treat us all as friends. Let me be blunt about something. Do you think that any of the women here are dressed the way they are, if they don’t want to be looked at? Victor certainly isn’t objecting. When you were in school, did you run across any nontraditional relationships? You might be seeing some here. Just for the record, Victor definitely likes women. I like men. We aren’t always monogamous, but we always are honest with one another. Molly Anne and Rachel aren’t even married.”

One of the little things that I love about Vanessa is that she is capable of going to a restaurant bathroom without a female pack. On her way back, three individuals blocked her way. “Hey, you can do better than the guys you’ve got.” One grabbed her shoulder. I jumped up to help. Vanessa was far stronger than she looked, but she hadn’t done a lot of martial arts training.

To my amazement, Rachel and Mike streaked past me. Mike moved close to Vanessa, encouraging her assailant to grab for him. Said assailant was next seen to be floating through the air, and, once on the ground, moaning as he cradled what looked like a dislocated elbow.

Rachel went into the other two, like an elemental force. I could see that she was hitting, and hitting hard, but so fast that I could barely see what she was doing. Vanessa hasn’t really studied a discipline but rained some hard if amateurish blows on targets of opportunity. By then, the part-time bouncers had shown up, and dumped the three drunks into the parking lot.

When we sat down again, Mike looked at Rachel, admiringly. “Is your discipline krav maga, or perhaps sambo?”

My immediate priority was getting ice for Vanessa’s hands. “Dear, we need to give you a little training. Hitting hard things with fists isn’t usually the best thing for the fists.”

Rachel moved close to Mike, her knee pressing against his thigh. She licked her lips, only partially because they were dry. “Krav maga. I spent some time in Israel. I probably could have rescued Vanessa on my own, but I was happy to have you there. Obviously, you’ve also studied something.”

“Judo. Some competition. I guess that discipline is enough that I’m fairly calm now.”

“Mike, I don’t want to be upset or in fear about something that had to be done, but I also don’t want to calm myself completely. After fighting, I feel horny. Do you? Is that something that you suppress?” He looked very thoughtful.

Vanessa gave me a significant look. I turned to Mike. “I see that Vanessa also is horny. Mike, she and I trust one another completely at the emotional level. Neither of us restrict the other as far as friends or, to be blunt, sex. We sometimes experiment together. But if Vanessa joins you and Rachel, which I’d expect as inevitable, it’s just fine with me.”

Molly Anne had been quiet. “Mike, I’d be happy to help clean up their leftovers. Want to come home with us?” He agreed, clearly going into unknown but interesting challenges.

At home, we introduced Mike to Jill, Joyce, and Scarlett. Their outfits were still technically decent, but more provocative than the provocative clothing that the trio had worn to the bar. Jill had seen Joyce’s favorite hairdresser. I don’t know what was done to Jill’s hair, which never had looked bad. Now, however, it was a thick mane of bronze-gold. “Mike. Take it easy. Oh, you may wind up in happy play with all of these ladies, but until you get specialized training; you’re going to hurt your neck swiveling your head back and forth.”

Molly Anne giggled. “Mike, Victor makes every effort, but he can’t keep up with this many women all the time. He and the rest of us would like to have more male friends.”

Joyce said, “I’m waiting for a friend, Kris, to meet with us. He’s a fantastic hair stylist, who did these amazing things with Jill. He’s also bi and might become a closer friend.”