Chapter 11: Another Star Lights Up

Roy sat in one of the more comfortable chairs on the patio with a circle of friends around. Elise returned to her chair with a glass of water for Roy, and a Southern Comfort Manhattan for herself. He looked longingly at the alcoholic drink as she sipped and talked to Pam.

Dave said, “So, what is your physical therapy all about?”

“I’m taking all sorts of blood thinners and other crap, so no alcohol for a while. I have a very long list of foods I am to avoid – carbs and fats, mostly. I am to start walking and do that just about nonstop while the sun is up. I already walked three miles this morning and I’ll do that again this afternoon. It takes me an hour. I’m to gradually pick up the pace and distance until I reach a point where I start to pant and can go five miles nonstop at a good clip. And then, I have to spend about another half-hour in the gym doing light weights – nothing over eight pounds.”

“Is that risky?”

“With the stents in and doing well, the docs don’t think so. Tim Faurst stopped by and approved. He’s my GP. The cardiac guy and Tim talked for a half-hour. They’d like to see me work my up to a slow jog again, but I haven’t done that since I was forty. What will happen is my whole immune system will switch over and start protecting me again.”

“Did they attribute any cause to your heart attack?”

Roy adopted a serious tone. “Sex. They said I was having sex too energetically and too frequently for a man my age. I am supposed to trim back to twice a month. I figured I’d start after this weekend.”

Elise had been listening and then squawked, “WHAT? What are you talking about? The doctor said no such thing. I need you to be in top condition so that we can keep up our two or three times a day activity. Where did you ever...”

Dave and Roy’s laughter overrode Elise’s sudden concern about her new husband losing some crucial capability. She suddenly realized that her husband was poking fun at her. For a sixty-four-year-old woman she had the libido of an eighteen-year-old nymphomaniac and could put Rose and Danica to shame. She had remained one of the most sexually-active members of the Circle since she showed up after Aaron and Dave’s father had passed away over a decade earlier.

As Elise discovered the underpinnings of the Circle, she also revealed to her two sons that she and her husband had not been the staid, sedate, and unadventurous mature couple they remembered growing up. To the contrary, Dave and Aaron were told how their parents had been swingers for many years, and that Aaron had been sired by another love interest that Elise had, and that Dave had a half-sister named Gail sired by his father that he didn’t know about until her tell all. Gail had later joined the Circle and Dave had fathered a child with her.

Roy said with a touch of humor to his tone, “One of the downsides of two of the meds I’m taking is the erectile dysfunction they create. I’ve been encouraging Elise to be more active with my gentlemen cohorts in the Circle, especially on weekend evenings such as tonight. I want her active here on the patio, doing what cums naturally. I’ll be at home playing the cuckold watching television and waiting for my wayward wife to return and tell me about her misdeeds. I want her to come home barely able to walk, dripping cum, and happy as a clam.”

Dave teased his stepfather, “I thought she did that anyway?”

“She often does, but now she needs to. My absence will further upset the male-female balance in the Circle, so double-up, men!”

Alice asked, “How long do you have to keep taking those meds that upset the apple cart?”

Roy said, “Maybe a month or two. Then they start weaning me from them. They’re to help avoid my body rejecting the stents. If that starts all sorts of bad things start to happen. At least, I get some warning, like angina and irregular heartbeats. I have a new wristwatch that gives me an alert if some of that stuff starts.”

A little later, Roy stood and broke up the group. “I have to start walking again – keep the blood flowing and all that.” He stood and headed away towards the main gate. He waved over his shoulder as he disappeared between Dave and Alice’s home and the Ander’s home. Dave figured that he’d walk down to Paine Park, cut through downtown, and then head home.

As Dave walked across the patio, his phone beeped with a text message from Scarlett. Each wife had a special ring tone and text message beep on his phone. He glanced at the message, ‘Felicity staying over an extra week or two based on reading Cricket’s book and watching the episodes of season two for the TV show. Please don’t schedule anything tonight. She needs you plus really curious about The Experience. Send her home in pieces and barely able to walk, please. Oh, yes, I’ve a copy of her paperwork; she’s clean as a whistle – to quote her and the lab report.’’

Dave worked the bar that Saturday evening, so got to a table to eat after the meals had been mostly served. He found Felicity and Scarlett had saved a seat for him, and so enjoyed dinner with them, along with Cooper, Lane, Carol, Larry, and Steve. The latter became the center of conversation as he extolled the virtues of the robots that he and his robotics lab were building and how they’d eventually transform the world. He got everyone thinking about a technology-laden future where robots handled many of the unpleasant tasks of mankind.

Carol said, “I just need a robot that’ll poke Ike in the side and get him to take out the garbage.” Steve looked frustrated that she hadn’t embraced the full concept such as the robot handling the garbage.

Dave said to Carol, “I ran into Colleen doing a beautiful painting of Danica and Toby.”

She laughed, “Yes. They’re having fun modeling, and I love Colleen’s style. Ike and I bought the first one that we have hanging over our bed. I mean don’t most parents have a glaringly explicit painting hanging in their bedroom of their erstwhile son-in-law and their daughter fucking?”

Dave commented, “Colleen didn’t say who she’d sold them to.”

“Well, Bob and Ginny Fuller bought the second one that Colleen did. In that one, Toby and Danica are again naked, and he’s taking her from behind as she stands and turns back to kiss him. That painting is over their bed. I saw it last night when I slept there with Bob. Ginny was in my bed with Ike. None of us got much sleep, but we’re still happy campers. The paintings and thinking what our kids are doing are inspirational.”

Dave teased, “Why don’t you model for a painting?”

Carol grabbed hold of her modest love handles on each side of her upper hips. “Love handles, see? Also, I have a serious sag problem with every piece of skin on my body and cellulite is setting in.” She picked up both breasts and heaved them in Dave’s direction with a giggle. They continued vibrating for a few seconds before coming to a rest.

“But you sag in such a sexy way and in all the right places.” Dave reached next to him and tickled the very tip of one nipple.

“Oh, stop it. You’re just trying to get into my panties.”

“Is that a problem?” Dave asked in a serious tone.

Carol snickered, “No. I don’t wear panties. I still like to flash people. That’s what loosening up did for me – gave me a lifelong hobby. Bob thinks that it’s a great pastime. I even have some surreptitious photos of some of my victims. Of course, around here, everyone has made love to my pussy, so I wear a monokini all the time.

Felicity asked in a more serious tone, “Don’t you get embarrassed?”

Carol smiled, “That’s part of what loosening up was supposed to do for me; get me past being mortally embarrassed when either I or someone else said, did, or implied something sexual. I can still remember in seventh grade going to school with the slip under my dress showing like three inches in the back. Everyone laughed at me and I prayed the earth would open up and swallow me. Big trauma, obviously since I can still remember the incident. Today, if that happened, I’d be laughing along with everybody else as I fixed the problem in front of them by hiking up my dress and adjusting my waistband while they watched.”

Felicity said, “In the book about the Circle it said that ‘Loosening Up’ played a key role in the formation of the Circle and the development of many members.”

Dave said, “In a way, Alice started the loosening up process right after she caught our friend Dori fucking a guy in his car at work. Dori took on Alice and me as a challenge. We were wired tighter than a drumhead about sex and relationships. We did a whole lot of things that took us down the road from evangelistic thinking about man to where we are today, having a love affair with everyone in the Circle.”

“Do you miss your church and its teachings?”

Everyone at the table laughed until tears nearly came to their eyes. Felicity didn’t realize what she’d said in her simple question.

Scarlett put her hand on her friend’s shoulder and said, “It’s all right, Felicity. I’ll give you the short version of what happened. That Ohio church had as members, not only Dave, but also Alice, Julie, and Karen – sisters, and the first are two of Dave’s wives, plus the girl’s parents.

“After Alice and Julie had loosened up and defected to the Circle lifestyle, their parents went ballistic and cut them off. When Karen became a sympathizer, the parents went totally fucking nuts. Ultimately, they paid some of the church’s leaders to kidnap Karen’s two youngest children – Alice and Julie’s niece and nephew, and bring them back to Ohio to live in the church’s shadow and under their control. They failed and were caught red-handed. Result was that one was shot and wounded, and that man and three others including the church’s pastor and the girls’ father ended up with long prison and jail terms.

“Leap forward about five years to about a year ago. Karen had a long-standing civil lawsuit against the church and her parents. After lots of legal maneuvering, the case was heard and decided in her family’s favor. The key result was that lots of money came to Karen and family, the church was closed, and anybody working there was forbidden from working in a management or religious institution again. The then minister became incensed, created a stink around here because he’s out of a job and the flow of money that kept him in posh digs. He does a lot of vandalism, drops a few bombs on the Circle – literally, and then ends up holding Alice hostage for a few hours at gunpoint. He was caught and is now in jail for twenty to thirty. Dropping mortar rounds on a populated area was not considered fashionable by the jury and judge.”

She laughed, “So, when you ask if Dave misses the church and any of its teachings, you now have the backdrop to hear him answer firmly...”

Scarlett gestured to Dave, who almost yelled, “FUCK, NO!” Dave and those nearby all broke up laughing again; even Felicity, this time.

Felicity said, “I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet. I read the part about when Julie decided to move out of her parent’s home, and then decided to come to Florida to be with you. I got the first part of their going ballistic, but this was way over the top.”

After a few minutes, Felicity asked, “What other drama goes on here?”

Most of the people shrugged, “Not much, really. We have the reality TV cameras around, as you know.” Dave nodded at one of the camera crews recording them. “Other than that, we live pretty simple lives. We love one another and try to treat everyone we meet with kindness and respect. It’s just that somedays, the shit hits the fan.”

Scarlett asked Felicity, “Did you read in the book about the Atlantic Airlines crash in Kansas?”

“Yes. Oh, my God, that was such a masterful piece of flying to save all those people.”

Scarlett crooked a finger at a man at the next table and Ken Toomey rose and came over. She said, “Ken, I’d like to introduce you to one of my Hollywood friends, Felicity.”

Ken smiled broadly, “Felicity Jones, how nice to meet you in person. I’m a big fan.” Ken ratcheted up three notches in Scarlett’s book because he instantly recognized Felicity and greeted her by name.

They went back and forth for a few minutes about how he’d saved the plane and all the passengers, years back. Ken was now the senior pilot for Atlantic Airlines. He was currently having a tremendous squabble with some of the executives that wanted to buy about a hundred Boeing 737 Maxes, and replace more of their aging fleet. Ken didn’t think the plane was safe enough to fly in passenger service yet.

After Ken went back to his table, Dave said, “One of my favorite ministers I heard speak, long retired, had a statement I love to quote that applies to how we live here in the Circle. ‘Fate is what life deals us. Destiny is what we do with it.’ That fit Ken’s situation with his broken airplane, and many of our drama situations here in the Circle.”

Felicity talked to Scarlett as we listened, “I remember when you were outed as being a Circle member and then being one of Dave’s wives. None of that seemed to bother you at the time, and it obviously still doesn’t.”

Scarlett laughed and shrugged. “Remember Dr. Seuss; ‘Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.’ Once I embraced those words, I didn’t care what anybody else thought about me except for a few very intimate friends and most of them were Circle members.