Chapter 1: Florida

Dave panted to a stop in front of his house. This was the end of a five-mile jog with Bridget. When he could talk, he gasped, “You do this every day?”

“Yep. I really feel great the rest of the day.”

“All right, take me with you every day until I leave. I didn’t realize I was so out of shape.”

“You should be in better shape because of the martial arts stuff we do.”

“I guess I haven’t been stressing myself enough.”

“But you’re good at the katas and the training regime.”

“It’s not as aerobic as running.”

“We were jogging,” Bridget corrected. “If you want to see running, I’ll race you around the Circle. It’s just about a quarter-mile.”

“You’re trying to kill me and collect on my life insurance. The other wives put you up to this evil plot.”

Bridget laughed. “You need to be in better shape for your trip. Moreover, once you’re traveling, you’re going to have to exercise every day, and I don’t mean that you spend the night humping some new honey you find along the way.”

“I won’t violate the Circle rules.”

Bridget continued to chuckled, “You mean about STD tests? I suspect that when you meet someone you want to be with, they’ll have all the right paperwork close at hand. We’re all counting on you to get laid, re-laid, and parlayed on a daily basis.” We want to hear lots of ‘How I nailed her’ stories. Preferably, one for every state.”

Dave said, “That may be a long process. I might only get halfway through the forty-eight states this year. I am NOT riding a motorcycle around in snow and ice like Jim Mellon did. If I don’t have major work commitments, I’ll do the rest the following year. Moreover, I doubt the women I meet along the way will have the right paperwork even if they feel inclined to do something with me, which I doubt they will. They’d mostly be one-night stands.”

“Don’t disappoint us. All your wives and friends just want to hear the lurid and erotic stories about how you seduced one fair maiden after another, and then WE’LL fuck your brains out, too.” Bridget headed for the pool, “Come on, I have to go to work.”

Bridget and Dave strolled between two homes to the patio. In a few seconds, they were naked and dove into the pool to cool down. After a few lazy laps, they climbed out by the stairs. Dave got them towels, they dried off, and then headed into the house carrying their jogging clothes to dress.

After a light breakfast, Dave led a few of his other wives to the unfinished core room he’d been using as the preparation zone for his motorcycle trip across the country. The entire floor was covered with over a hundred pieces of camping gear, cooking gear, freeze-dried foods, energy bars, personal hygiene kit, first aid kit, tools, and even a couple of spare parts.

Alice and Pam stood at the edge of the layout and teased their husband. “Are you SURE you aren’t forgetting something really important?”

Dave’s head whipped around, “What do you see that’s missing?” He sounded worried.

“We’re teasing you,” Pam chuckled. “You are the best prepared person to go on this trip of anybody we know.”

Alice added in a sarcastic tone, “Slightly anal retentive, perhaps, but well prepared.”

Scarlett strolled around all the gear looking at everything, “How’d you know to take all this stuff?”

Dave stood and addressed the three of them. “I watched hours of videos by other cross-country motorcycle riders on YouTube and made lists. There are also hundreds of lists of what to take on the Internet. I used all of that to make my own list.”

Scarlett sounded skeptical, “Will all this stuff FIT on your motorcycle and allow room for you and someone else? You know you can buy some of this stuff as you travel?”

Dave raised a finger, “That’s the next step in my preparation. I have to pack. There’s an art to this apparently. Things I will only need when I camp out or stay some place go in the left saddlebag. Things I might need for repairs or on-the-road situations, go in the right-hand saddle bag. That keeps me away from traffic if I need to search around in that bag close to the road.”

Julie appeared and set a small soft-pack canvas bag at the edge of her husband’s layout.

“What’s that?” Dave asked pointing to the bag.

“When I join you, that’s my luggage for the trip – the bare minimum, I assure you. At that, I’m counting on warm and relatively dry weather. I’m not expecting to camp out, and I’m expecting that you will be carrying a helmet that will fit me and any other of your guest riders.”

Dave said, “I guess this afternoon I’ll pack it all up and put it on the bike.”

Julie teased, “I hope you bought stock in the company that makes bungee cords because you’re going to need about a hundred of them to hold all this stuff so it doesn’t fall off.”

Alice turned to Pam, but teased her husband, “I don’t see any bungees in the layout, do you?”

Dave pointed to some plastic wrapped packages sitting on the room’s windowsill. In one there were at least a fifty bungee cords.

The women dispersed, and Dave went outside and took the empty saddlebags off of the 1988 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail motorcycle. He brought them into his staging area, and started to make groupings of various luggage items to go into each bag.

Slowly, the left- and right-side bags filled. The dozens of various size baggies, some with Dave’s travel wardrobe filled the left-side bag. The tools, rain gear, chaps, and a few other riding items the right-side bag. Next, Dave worked on tightly packing his sleeping bag, inflatable pillow, ground cloth, and the amazing two-person tent that was waterproof but not much larger than his forearm. Those items went into a waterproof bag more typically used by sailors. That package would get strapped on the bike just beneath his headlight. The extra helmet would be strapped to the passenger seat.

Dave had bought a customized pannier for behind the sissy bar. In this bag, he had his laptop computer, various chargers for his computer and phone, walking shoes and socks, sunscreen, a flashlight, a notebook and several pens, a small camera, spare face shields for his helmet, a water bottle, gloves, compression tattoo sleeves, duct tape, matches and dry kindling, and cable ties. Dave had just found a large micro-fiber beach towel in a pack about the size of two fists. That replaced a terry cloth towel that took up even more room.

Packing went faster than Dave expected. By noon, he had everything strapped to the Harley. Any additions, such as Julie’s duffel bag, could be strapped to the bike atop his bed roll and overnight bag, or even attached over the handlebars.

After Dave finished all the attachments, he rode the bike around Circle Drive, testing whether the bike handled any differently with all the gear attached. It didn’t; certainly not like an extra passenger did. After two loops, he rode the bike to the Interstate, went north for an exit, and then returned to the Circle. Everything stayed on the bike, despite subjecting the load to eighty-five miles an hour speed for a short distance.

Dave rolled the motorcycle into his carport, parked it next to JR’s sporty Jaguar sports car, and covered everything with a tarp. He wasn’t planning to unpack and repack everything. He’d leave the next day, June first, and start heading north.

Dave had a rough itinerary laid out. It was posted on the website so Circle members knew more or less what he had planned for the first two weeks. Beyond that, he wasn’t sure what life would deliver along his route. The caveat was weather, which looked ideal for the coming week, and then who he met and what adventures he chose to court.

He had a date with the woman who’d become a quasi-wife, except she lived almost all the time with Mark Worthington – her husband. Cindy Worthington was going to meet him at the Meadows the next afternoon and spend the rest of the day and night with him. Dave would leave the next morning to motor up into Georgia to visit the Atlanta Group, staying with Bret and Jean, or someone in their growing group.

The wives had conspired to be home the last evening in May, and to even put Alice and Pam, Dave’s first two wives, on either side of him after they’d made love. Alice said, “We just want to remind you what you have here at home. Don’t forget us as you start all your adventures.”

“But aren’t you going to join me along the way?”

“We have a plan and we know your plan. What was it you used to say at work, ‘Plans are worthless; planning is essential?’ Well, we are still thinking through the various segments of your trip to see how we’ll blend into things with you.”

Dave smiled, “Just remember the luggage limit on the bike.”

Pam teased, “Oh, yes, two ounces and must fit in a pocket of tight blue jeans.”

Dave spent the morning in bed with Heather and Cricket. After their lovemaking, Dave ran five miles, and then swam thirty laps in the pool. He rinsed off the chlorine in the poolside shower, and then walked naked into his home to dress for the ride up to The Meadows. A few kisses from his wives who’d stayed at home, and he was on his way.

The ride to the Meadows, billionaire Mark Worthington’s weekend home near the city, took ninety minutes when using some of the back roads and encountering every red light. Since the tourist season was over in Florida, almost all the snowbirds had left for their home states and traffic was light.

Cindy had a late lunch planned for the two of them on the patio. In this case, a servant for the Meadows that Dave hadn’t met before served the meal as they sat in the shade and looked out over the meadow that dropped off towards a small river running through the property.

After the server had left, Dave commented, “I haven’t seen her before. Things usually happen around here by magic.”

Cindy laughed, “Oh, they’re here; they just know how to keep a low profile. Brenda Morris just started with us. She’s what Mark calls a general utility outfielder.”

“And that means?” Dave asked.

“She does just about anything that’s required in the house except for the heavy lifting or roof repairs.” She laughed. “And of course, she is not a participant in our weekend sexual flings that take place on this patio, although I’m sure she knows about them or has even watched from some hiding place. Most of the help have. Brenda has only been here a month.”

“You and the others here think about sex the same way we do, I think,” Dave postulated.

“Consenting adults can do whatever they want about sex,” Cindy repeated in a droll tone. “We do exactly that, and we’ve come to ignore anybody like those on the periphery – such as Brenda – that might want to watch. As you’ve done with your staff such as Bobbie and Millie, if they want to participate, all they need to do is ask, but there is no expectation. Also, on your ‘consenting’ statement, we’d add ‘as often as we can’.” She laughed.

“Do you do an NDA or something?”

“Yes, both. Hopefully, the NDA will preserve our privacy so there are no ‘tell all’ books or articles, and the ‘something’ is an acknowledgement if and when they start to engage in sex with us that they acknowledge that is no quid pro quo going on. So far, we’ve never had a problem, and you know that most of the women in Mark’s office are in his inner circle.”

Dave laughed, “That’s the way it should be. I married JR and Nikky. I was already married to Alice, and Jenny may as well be a wife. There were others at EneRG, but now it’s JR’s turn to play in the executive suite.”

“You’re overdue for another few wives in your family, aren’t you?” Cindy teased.

“Actually, I may have found one. I met a young woman at Owen’s holiday parties and we really clicked – as in REALLY clicked. She reads me like a book, our auras interact, she has all the right sensitivities, is smart and insightful, loves and is loved by my wives, and has a spiritual spark that connects with my own spark. After I get back from this trip, I’ll start to think more seriously about whether or not, and if so, then how to reel her into my crazy family.”