Chapter 15: Office Work

Dave arrived home at six o’clock, given the time difference and the time for the flight from Phoenix to Tampa, plus the drive home from Tampa. He had slept on the plane and felt greatly refreshed.

No one was in the house when he got inside, but he guessed with certainty that everyone would be in the core starting the Saturday night gathering. He changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and went down the corridor into the core. He could hear the din of conversation as he got nearer and nearer to the living room. The doors were open and people were spilling out onto the patio near the pool.

A cheer rose up from Sean, “HE’S HOME. WELCOME HOME, FEARLESS LEADER! OH, LEAD US FORWARD! YOUR NEW LEADERSHIP SKILLS DRIP FROM YOUR PORES.” There were lots of noise, applause, and screaming.

Alice quickly found Dave, and gave him one of her knock-your-socks-off kisses. “I’ve missed you. I’m soooo glad you’re home.”

“Me, too.”

“Even though you had a steady stream of new, ripe females through your bed while you were away?” she teased.

“Correct. Even though. I love all of you, and they were a nice diversion while I got my leadership training, although I don’t feel much different.”

Alice asked, “What was your body count out there? Four or five?”

“Dave rattled off the names, “Holly, Tan, Jenn, Gwen, Tiffany, Katie, and Valerie. So, seven.”

“And they all love you, right?”

“Right. A couple of the women want to come here and visit to see our set up. One of the guys I met wants to bring his wife for show ‘n tell. I think they would really like to move in with us in some way. I gave out all sorts of criteria and basically told them they had to be everyone’s sex slave, but none of that scared them off.”

Pam closely followed by Julie and Heather came up and also welcomed their husband home. They talked briefly about the trip and what had been happening in the Circle, but things had been quiet and no drama had occurred.

Dave stuck with his wives that night and throughout Sunday. The others understood and nothing was said. Sunday, Dave unpacked and got grounded in his ‘at home’ routines, and again made love several times with each of his wives. He also spent some quality time with Matthew making sure the lad got some adult male influence as they played ‘rough’ around the pool – as Matthew requested. Being tossed high in the air into the pool became a new favorite sport.

Monday morning he was at work early, expecting to find a foot of work piled on his desk. Instead, he found a spotless desk with only a few telephone message slips. He was speechless. As he stood staring at the spacious desktop, he got a gentle nudge from behind and a polite hug.

“Welcome home, boss.”

Dave turned to Nancy Mason as he stood looking into his exceptionally neat office. Nancy was the woman he’d chosen as his assistant. “Where is it all? Nothing piled up? Given what I know was in the pipeline, there should be a mountain of work some place. Is it all in a box someplace?”

Nancy meekly said, “I kept on top of it. I hope I did okay with everything. There were a few coin tosses in the mix, but everything got delegated out or turned back to other departments.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I tried hard to do exactly what you would have done ... or better.” She laughed slightly at her humor.

“I’m amazed. You far exceeded my expectations. You sure there are no loose ends?”

Nancy beamed. “Nothing left. Thank you. I wanted to please you.”

“Wait!” Dave said in realization. “How many extra hours did you put in to do this?”

Nancy suddenly looked chagrined and blushed. She answered in a near whisper; “I did a double shift all week. I did my work and yours.”

Dave shook his head. “DAMN! You didn’t have to do that. All you had to do was put out the fires. I want you to take comp time for what you did. What possessed you to think you had to do that?”

Still looking contrite she said, “I didn’t think I had to, I did it because ... I really like you and wanted to make your life easier.”

Dave went on guard a little. “I’m honored, I guess. I like you, too; that was why I picked you for this job, but I didn’t expect you to work sixteen hours a day to prove it. Did you get enough sleep?”

“Yes, thank you. I usually get by on six hours. One night I slept on the sofa in your office.”

“Shit, Nancy! Please don’t do anything like this again. That’s not healthy and I like you enough to tell you that flat out. The utility won’t go out of business if some of the stuff waits a week or two.”

Nancy looked Dave in the eye and blurted out, “I like the way you live, too. I know what’s involved. I would like to be part of your outside work life. I know I’m taking a risk telling you that, and that it violates all sorts of company rules and policies, but that’s the way I feel. I want to be part of your Circle. I want to be a major part of your life and have you in mine.”

“How long have you felt like this and why?”

“Since two years ago, when you started to ‘loosen up’ as you called it. My feelings have intensified since. You’re such a nice man; so loving and so caring. You’re a true friend to everyone you meet. You’ve been especially helpful to me, and you don’t even know it. Why do I have these feelings, you may ask? Well, I confess that I fell in love with you. When you asked me to be your assistant, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Please don’t make me leave. If I have to, I’ll never bring up the subject again.” Nancy held her breath, bit her lower lip, and looked at Dave with dancing eyes hoping for the best. Her eyes teared up slightly at her admission.

Dave turned and wrapped his arms around Nancy. She blended right in close to his body, pulling him in more snuggly to hers and even making sure it wasn’t a polite hug, it was one of those hugs where her body molded to his from knees to shoulders bonded in the same way. The both felt the others interesting bumps and mounds.

Nancy turned her face up to Dave’s. There was no hesitation on either part. They kissed very tenderly.

Dave said in a soft tone, “You are a very special person. I need to think about what’s going on here and the future. You should, too. Why don’t you join my family tonight for dinner, unless you have plans; six o’clock and casual clothes – very casual.”

Nancy nodded enthusiastically, “I gladly accept.” She almost jumped with joy the way a little kid would do at an offer to go to Disneyland.

As Dave moved to behind his desk, he asked her, “You do know I live with four women?”

“I do. I also know that informally you call three of them your wives in addition to your legal wife Alice. I’m told they’re very nice and also gorgeous. I guess you brought some of them to the Halloween party that Derek Wilson had where you got promoted. I happened to talk to Donna Klaubert, his assistant, and your name came up. I learned all sorts of things.”

Dave thought back. He’d been at that party with Alice, her sister Julie, Pam, and Heather. Donna had crushed on him, and blatantly asked him to include her in some of his risqué activities. She seemed to know all there was to know about his life, and it was damned accurate. Nonetheless, he resisted. Worse, he recalled that Derek’s wife Emily had also come on to him, and Derek had even ‘put in a good word’ for her with him.

Dave chuckled, “All probably true. There’s probably nothing in the company or the lives of its employees that she doesn’t know. Santa Claus consults with her when he does his ‘naughty or nice’ list.”

“What can I bring tonight?” Nancy asked.

“Just you and an open mind,” he grinned at her.

Dave found himself in much the same situation that Alice had over a couple of years earlier when Dori had given her the challenge to flash her boss, and then when Roy Goodman had asked here to dinner. Dori had predicted the sexual intimacy the pair shared on that dinner date once the ‘flash’ had occurred.

Alice being with Roy had worked out well. They’d had several other evenings together, and then Roy had been introduced to the Circle and he’d fit right in. Now, he was the proud owner of one of the homes in the Circle Cohousing Project, and a full participant in the loving and sex that the group engaged in. He and Alice were frequent lovers despite their professional relationship. Everyone like the friendly older man.

Dave wondered about Nancy. Other than the hug and tender kiss they had just shared and the revelations she’d made to him, they had never had an unprofessional moment. Moreover, he didn’t even have to look at the employee handbook; he knew that anything suggesting a romantic sexual interaction or even flirting was a huge no-no. That said, Donna had come on to him, and then so had Emily – and her husband on her behalf.

He struggled for a few hours thinking about Nancy and a possible relationship with her. He also thought back to the women he’d thoroughly enjoyed at the previous week’s Leadership Program out in Sedona.

Finally, at lunch, he called Alice. “Hey, darling. I have a situation I need your counsel on.”

Alice laughed, “This must have something to do with someone at work otherwise you would have talked about it at breakfast or waited until dinner. Is it Nancy? Does she want to be your lover?”

“Damn, Alice. How do you do that? Yes, that’s exactly what’s going on, only she hasn’t been quite that blunt in what she’s said, but it’s in the cards. She worked her job and mine last week putting in hours of unpaid overtime to make me happy, she said. She also confessed to having been in love with me for a long time, and although she didn’t directly admit it, she wants to up the game. She gave me one very hot welcome home kiss, too. I invited her to dinner.”

Alice thought for a moment, “Dinner is good. She can meet everybody, and better assess your home life and the Circle members. I could give her the lowdown on the Circle, and us, and then about ‘membership’. I had a thought last week that we need to have some way to create ‘Affiliate’ memberships in the Circle: people we love, but they don’t live on the Circle, and maybe they don’t fully participate in our sexual activities. I haven’t thought it all out yet.”

“That’s a great idea. Let’s talk about it at Thursday’s board and membership meeting for the Circle. In the meantime, what do you think I should do about Nancy?”

“Bring her home. Let me and the others see how she thinks and reacts to us, then I’ll answer your question. She’s very nice and I’m not at all averse to you having a relationship with her. I supposed the utility has the same restrictions on relationships between managers and staff that we do here at Knightsbridge?”

“I’m sure they do. I don’t even need to look. There’s probably also restrictions in there on the number of wives or husbands you could have, and a requirement to only fuck in the missionary position on Wednesdays and Saturdays.”

“See you at home. Maybe we’ll apply a little shock value and see what happens.” Alice laughed as they ended the call.

Dave’s clan was all present and accounted for. Heather kept trying to corral Matthew, but he wanted to go and play in the wading pool, promising to stay away from the large pool since he didn’t have his ‘floaties’ on his arms. He could kind of swim with the arm floats, but Heather didn’t want to take any chances on him panicking if he fell in over his head around the adult pool.

Nancy had worn shorts that nicely showed off her posterior and a colorful top, with jeweled flip-flops. Her outfit blended right in with most of what Dave’s wives wore, except was perhaps more conservative. Alice had intentionally dressed sexy in a thin scoop neck top that did little to hide her braless breasts or her dark areolas. Occasionally, a breast would almost escape the confines. Pam and Julie were similarly clad. Dave knew that if Matthew hadn’t been around, all four of them would have been topless since the weather was wonderfully warm given it was February.

The six of them had a cocktail in the Prentiss’ new living room, as Julie and Pam prepared some hors d’oeuvres for everybody in the Circle in the adjacent kitchen. When they were ready, Alice led the procession to the core living and dining area. As they walked, Alice explained to Nancy about the shared meals and various chores.

Quite a few from the Circle were present. Ty, Mike, and Kat were preparing the meal, with Mike splitting his time between helping Ty on the grill and Kat making a large salad in the core kitchen.

“How do you know how much food to make?” Nancy asked. “What if no one showed up?”

Dave showed her the large message board that indicated that Owen, Christie, Grace, Jack, Rachel, and Dev wouldn’t be at dinner.”

Nancy commented, “I like that each person left little hearts next to their names.”

“That’s to tell the rest of us that they love us and will miss us, just as we’ll miss them.”

“So, tonight there are thirteen for dinner.”

Dave pointed to the ‘+1’ next to his name. “Fourteen. The ‘+1’ is you. We occasionally have guests, and that alerts the cooking crew how much food to prepare, places at the tables to set, and so on.” He laughed and added, “It also reminds everyone to dress appropriately.”