Chapter 27: Seduction

Aaron stood at the curb of Circle Drive and watched the last of the boxes, furniture, art, mirrors, and beds go into the house that he and Shelby had bought on the Circle. Holly was right there, too; helping to direct each item to the correct room inside the home as three muscular movers lugged the boxes and furniture out of the truck and into the home.

Holly already had her room staked out and reasonably in order after moving in from her apartment in a Chicago neighborhood several weeks earlier.

Shelby had been using the furniture that had been in the ‘guest house’ waiting for the load of furniture that Aaron had launched towards Florida a few days earlier.

Most of the other Circle members came by to ‘officially’ welcome Aaron and Shelby to the neighborhood and to offer help. They both were inclined to unpack the various cardboard boxes themselves, rather than make a group effort out of it so they declined the many offers of assistance but then allowed help from a few in the kitchen to help get it organized.

Holly and Shelby set up the master bedroom, getting the bed made, and some of the wardrobe boxes emptied so the movers could take them away when they left. At least for that room, things looked a little better organized after an intense hour’s work. The couple, and Holly if they decided, could at least sleep in relative comfort. Holly did have her room organized.

Others from the Circle came and went at the new Prentiss house with food, snacks, and offers of help take orders, hang pictures, and turn the guesthouse into a home for the three permanent occupants. By five o’clock, a lot of progress had been made.

Shelby, Aaron, and Holly gave up unpacking and came and joined the others in the Circle on the patio for the cocktail hour. The hot sun was low in the sky and the temperatures had gotten reasonable. There was some partial nudity among the women, as some of the others also came and joined the core group.

Pam teased, “So, Aaron, we’ve had Shelby with us for over a month while you were up north working and packing. Were you lonesome? Did you miss her in your warm bed?”

Both Aaron and Shelby laughed. He elaborated, “Actually, from the day Shel left to come down here, I never slept in my bed. I was with our friends Sasha and Martin – mostly with Sasha. I was in her warm bed, sometimes with Martin there as well. He had to go to Europe for a week so for a while I had her all to myself.”

Alice raised an eyebrow, “Oh, you go both ways now?”

Aaron responded, “No, I’m afraid not. I’m very hetero, but I’m also tolerant of close proximity without the urge to get involved. I’m not even bi-curious. On the other hand, Sasha sometimes loved to be DPed or spit roasted. Usually, though, we’d take turns making love to her with one of us holding and kissing her and the other doing the deed. Martin and I became very skilled at rendering her a smoldering pile of orgasming female flesh after our first few nights together.”

Pam teased further, “And, I’m sure you knew that your wife was celibate while you were fucking your friend up north.”

Shel laughed, “He told me to be celibate but I thought he said celebrate.” The entire group laughed at the old line.

Aaron said with a smile, “I got frequent reports. I know she fucked her way around the Circle about a hundred times in the six weeks since she came back down here.”

Dave laughed, “We love you wife.”

“You love your sister-in-law, and you fucked her brains out a couple of times a week.”

“She’s fun and very lovable,” Dave tried to assure his brother.

Shel acted incensed, “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I love everyone in the Circle.

Dave said, “So, Aaron, what now?”

“I start working with Owen on Monday. Where is he anyway? I thought he was going to be here tonight, after all it’s Saturday.”

Julie, who also worked with Owen, responded, “He was on the west coast. He’s due back any second. I got a text from him about an hour ago. He said his jet was about an hour away from our little airport.”

Alice pointed out towards the west of the Circle, “That’s probably him now. See the landing lights on the plane way out there?” She pointed to the low western horizon.

Two dots of light about ten or twenty miles away in the dusky sky could be seen once they were pointed out. The jet banked slightly to its right, and then gently to the left to line up with the runway at Circle Airport. Everyone watched the plane get closer and closer as they chatted and munched on the hors d’oeuvres that Nancy and Clarisse had prepared.

Alice went and got her handheld aviation radio from her new pilot gear. She contacted the jet on 122.8 MHz. “Circle Airport to November One Bravo Foxtrot.” She knew that the BF in the tail number – bravo foxtrot – stood for Bennett Foundation.

The radio crackled, “November One Bravo Foxtrot, Circle Airport. We are five miles out landing on runway zero niner.”

Alice replied, “Altimeter three zero decimal zero four. Wind light and variable. Sky clear. Temperature eighty-two.” She’d become a fan of meteorology and always knew the aviation weather. No known traffic in the vicinity.

The group on the patio watched the plane get lower and slower in the nearly dark sky as it approached the eight-thousand-foot runway. The plane touched down, and immediately there was a gentle roar of the reverse thrusters as the plane came to a stop. The hangar was at the eastern part of the airport, so the plane taxied back to park and shutdown. Either the pilots or the lineman that oversaw the airport for Owen would take care of refueling and cleaning the aircraft, and parking it in the hangar unless there was another flight the next day.

About ten minutes after touching down Owen strolled onto the patio from between his house and Roy’s. “Hello, everyone.”

There was a round of hugs and kisses from the women, and then fist bumps and handshakes from the men. Owen said, “Nowhere else on the planet can I get a welcome like this one.” He got himself a glass of wine, and then sat with one of the clusters of Circle members.

Dave asked him, “So, was your trip Owen business or Foundation business?”

Owen said, “This one was for my business. I bought two businesses.” He glanced down the table at Holly, “One was based on an introduction that Holly provided to me about two months ago. Her VC firm had backed a three-dimensional printing firm that was specializing in printing body organs and bones from stem cells taken from the target patient. They were either going to sell the company or go through a tough IPO. I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

“Ah, the Godfather has spoken,” Dave teased.

Owen chuckled, “I’m going to fold them in with a genetic engineering outfit I bought out in the same geography, not to absorb them, but to provide an even more fertile ground for them to develop their processes and operations. They’ve gotten some good feedback and approvals from the FDA for what they’re doing, so I think the sky’s the limit on this one.”

Alice asked, “What’s the other business or don’t you want to say?”

Owen laughed, “It’s a company named Deep Six. They specialize in using artificial intelligence to spot fraudulent transactions in credit card and financial services industries, including those situations created by insiders. I didn’t buy them, but I took a forty percent stake in the business. They’re hoping for an IPO within two years after they iron out some glitches in their software systems. That industry accounts for the lion’s share of the fraud cases in North America, and those amounted to about $22 billion in losses in 2015 on credit card fraud alone. Other losses in that industry segment probably amount to at least that amount, so this is very fertile ground.”

“Big numbers,” Alice said in awe.

“Again, like the gold rush back in the mid-eighteen hundreds, we’re looking to make money in the middle rather than panning for gold. We want to be selling the levis, picks and shovels, or their equivalent, to the people doing the real digging. We think we’re putting together a fabulous tool kit. Further, if we can get it right for this industry segment, we’ll be in a great situation to re-target the AI systems to government, manufacturing, medical, and so on.”

“Ever the entrepreneur.”

“Just to add,” Owen said, “the Bennett Foundation will eventually be the recipient of the huge nets we expect to make from these transactions, so ultimately the money will be directed to some worthy social causes, such as new health care facilities and such where communities can’t afford to develop them.”

Aaron said, “So, you’re really like a re-distribution center for large amounts of money.”

Owen grinned as though his secret had been discovered.

Alice and Pam ramped up so they were taking flying lessons three or four days a week. Pam had the tougher time scheduling because of the traveling she did during the week for her consulting business. Ken was accommodating, and also gave her preferential time when she was in town and over the weekends. If she had to stay overnight someplace, she always had some of the books with her that she was studying for her written tests and was energized to pass them with flying colors.

The result was that in early-May on a Saturday the entire Circle gathered down at the Circle Airport to watch Alice and Pam solo – to fly the aircraft without an instructor in the cockpit with them.

Ken Toomey turned the plane over to each of them in turn, and watched them fly around the circuit several times and do three touch and go landings. Afterwards, Ken made a major ceremony of cutting the shirttails off the shirts each of the women had worn. He signed them and drew pictures of the high winged airplane on them.

Roy asked, “Where’d that tradition come from, cutting shirt tails off?”

Ken explained, “When I was in the Air Force it was explained to me that years ago the military trainers were tandem – the instructor sat behind the student as he learned to fly. The instructor would tug on the student’s shirttail to get his attention and then yell at him over the noise of the engine. Cutting the shirttail off meant that the student no longer needed such safety guidance and could fly on his own – he would be tailless.”

Everybody cheered and applauded at the end of the ceremony and the signing of logbooks for the two women. The Circle members walked back up Airport Road to their homes and the core afterwards. Ken came with them, having been invited to dinner. He’d even arranged that he could stay over in the small apartment in the hangar if he had anything to drink, an activity he did plan on.

As usual during the cocktail and dinner time there was some partial nudity by some of the women. Some of it was even planned on behalf of Ken’s presence. Ken was more relaxed this time than the last time he’d visited the Circle core with Alice and Pam after their lessons a few weeks earlier. Surprisingly, during their lessons neither woman had done any more than a little verbal sparring and teasing with the handsome instructor. Both, however, had carefully choreographed the dinner and evening with him. A double seduction was in process.

Alice and Pam had carefully tested and cataloged the character traits of Ken Toomey. He was a jet jockey, so for one, enjoyed the sense of the hunt, the risk, and the reward upon completion of a mission. Yet he was also meticulous in his preparation and planning, just as the two women were in the tracking down of their prey.

Alice had engaged Ken in a discussion about his personal life. Ken had eventually revealed, “The steady girl I went with for eight years decided she didn’t want to live the life of an airline pilot’s wife. Heck, she’d even put with part of my military stint. I don’t even have the job yet, but she left anyway. I date, but I’m not into the bar scene any longer, computer dating seems a bit of a crap shoot because it’s so easy for people to lie, and I’m not a church goer, so I spend more than a few weekends alone.”

Pam found that Ken liked women that behaved as self-sufficient equals. He even admitted that he didn’t mind when he realized that he was being chased, but he often missed the clues to that activity. Ken especially enjoyed his role as an instructor, teaching the uninitiated what he was a pro at. From the way he reacted to the Circle patio and some other comments she came to believe he wasn’t as savvy about sex and relationships as movies like Top Gun would have you believe about all fighter pilots.