Chapter 38: Fan Club: Making Memories

“This place is seductive.”

“Why?” Dave asked. The other pledges in the Circle 101 class learned forward to hear Jocelyn’s response.

“The Circle addresses so many of the things that are wrong with society. It ‘rights’ them. I always thought it was hard to make friends; the Circle made it easy. Suddenly, I had about two-hundred of them overnight.

“Outside the Circle, there’s a pressure and counter-pressure to fall in love with someone. You have to limit yourself to ONE person even when your head and heart are telling you there are multiple people you ‘Love’. Here, there’s no pressure, but you make it easy to love everyone – and the philosophy is that anybody can love multiple people. Moreover, you feel loved by everyone here.

“Oh, if two people love the same other person, outside the gates they’d fight and get jealous about it; there’d be all sorts of drama. None of that exists in the Circle. You encourage the other person to be with the person you both love because you’re compersive. Harmony prevails, even as relationships ebb and flow in a harmonious and natural way.

“When I had some boyfriends in high school, they wanted to own and control me. They wanted me to be a possession and do what they told me. I resisted. In the Circle, control and possessiveness are not acceptable behaviors. Instead, the motto seems to be, we’re all equal now behave that way. People want to please each other, not control them.

“The way I’d been raised, I realize now, no one treated me like an adult. I’m nineteen years old. My parents intervened in every important decision I made, and even in many of the minor ones like what I’d wear to school or who I’d date. The Circle instantly treated me like an adult. Moreover, everyone here goes out of their way with events like this class to be sure I have the information I need to make informed, adult decisions about the rest of my life or just tomorrow.

“Outside the Circle, I feel like the guiding adult mindset is ‘Every man for themselves’. In the Circle, there’s this mindset about the loving social collective. Everybody does things to hold it all together and not let it slip. If you feel a need, someone will help you fill it. If you see a need, you are free to take on that task and fix it. Everyone has service jobs to contribute, and that builds the bond to the larger whole.

“And then there’s the sex. Just about everyone outside the gates behaves as though there’s no such thing. They don’t talk about it; it’s dirty; it’s hidden at best; and perish the thought that you’d ever ‘do’ it. In the Circle, the opposite is true. Sex is a welcome part of any friendship or relationship. It’s openly discussed or suggested. I can choose the who, where, why, when, and how, too, and no one cares, except to make me happy when we get together. Moreover, it’s acceptable to be together with others when we have sex to enhance arousal and one’s exhibitionist tendencies. This is a dream place.

“I was worried about what to tell my parents, and I’d start by telling them what I just said to all of you.”

Dave grinned, “Thank you. You just gave a very nice summary of the entire Circle 101 curriculum, too. Do any of you have questions for Jocelyn or for me?” He acted as though he were packing up his teaching notebook.

Misty raised her hand and asked, “You said it was seductive. Why pick that word?”

Jocelyn said, “Oh, all those things I mentioned draw me into this place like a magnet. I never want to leave to even go do the things I’ve committed to: college classes or seeing my family, for instance – things outside the gates of the Circle. I do those things, but I’m also happier doing them knowing I’m connected to the Circle.”

Matt asked, “Has anybody outside the Circle said anything to you?”

Jocelyn grinned. “Yes. My parents admitted to me I’m suddenly more mature and adult – that’s a huge change. Some friends commented that I seem to be outgrowing them. One said that I was significantly more mature than a year ago – more ‘adult’. Of course, none of them really know why. I haven’t exactly explained about the Circle to them. I think some of them would be shocked, so I’ll slowly feed them information about it.”

Penny said, “That’s because you are more fully developed than ever before in your life. I feel like the Circle filled in a hundred missing parts in my life and is making me a more complete person.”

Odessa said, “Things that scared me before, don’t now. I know that I can face anything because of the love and support I find here.”

The positive comments and testimonials by the eleven pledges continued. Dave watched Chet and Misty, both of whom had not declared their pledge status, although they’d continued to come to the Circle 101 classes at the urging of Rose and Matt.

Dave asked, “Has anybody had a bad experience because of the Circle or their affiliation with it?”

The room was silent.

Angie, a teacher at Southside Elementary School, said, “I admit to not broadcasting about the Circle where I work or to my parents. I’ve asked to stay out of the videos for the TV show, too. In one case, I’m afraid someone would raise some ethical issues that would result in losing my job as a teacher because somebody ‘out there’ would see me as a poor role model. In the other case, I thought I’d keep my parents in the dark about what Trent and I are doing until we were both full-fledged members. In their case, we did rave about the TV show and how much we liked everything we heard going on and philosophically. We’re trying to soften them up.”

A microsecond later, Misty asked, “What will you tell them and how?”

Angie said, “If we can get a townhouse, we’ll give them the change of address and explain where we’ve moved. That’ll start the discussion. I know what they’ll worry about, and we’ll have our counter-arguments ready to state in true debate fashion. I liked all the points Jocelyn raised, too.”

“What will those other points be?” Misty asked quickly.

“They’ll worry about the stability of our marriage, particularly when they realize that others are involved in parallel relationships with us on both sides. They’ll worry about me having sex with so many men and especially the women. I can hear my mother saying, ‘What are you becoming?’ Those will be the big concerns. Trent’s parents will be the same way, but they’ll see me as more the devious slut leading their son astray.”

“What will you say about the second worry they have – your reputation?”

Angie puffed up her cheeks and blew some air out with a pfffft sound. “I’ll explain that I am loved like never before in my life, and that I feel compelled to return the affection to the men and women that love me. I’ll tell them that I have a more modern or contemporary attitude about sex than they do, and I’ll point out all of the points that Jocelyn raised just a few minutes ago; I took notes.”

Angie locked eyes with her questioner. “Misty, you have to realize that you are now an adult. Other adults won’t agree with everything you do, or even most of it in many cases; the Circle has nothing to do with it. Pick a topic: religion, politics, education, child-rearing, being neighborly, duties of wife, and so on? You name it, and it’ll be easy to find people rabidly angry at what your views and behaviors are.

“Your parents likely will not agree with anything having to do with the Circle. This is where you have to take a stand and where you being an independent being comes into play, as Jocelyn pointed out. You need to be ready to say, ‘THIS is how I choose to live MY life’.” She waved her arms around her in all directions to take in the Circle. “Being an adult forces you to eventually take position after position on all sorts of topics. Even not taking a position is a position in many cases. If you think you’re doing nothing and remaining neutral, you’ve taken a default position to follow the hordes of others who also don’t think they’re taking a position. That other life is defined by people who DO take a position and tell everyone what they should be doing or how to think. I’ve come to realize that I don’t like that other life anywhere near as much as I LOVE this one.”

“What about your job?”

Angie kept the eye contact. “THIS is how I choose to live my life. I have more honesty and moral fiber than eighty percent of the other teachers in my school who deny much of themselves. I won’t do that. I will survive if someone there finds me deficient in some way because of my lifestyle. I trust in fate and destiny. All I’m doing is not advertising my lifestyle. There are many other jobs I could do, and probably at higher pay.” She chuckled.

Dave pulled the discussion back to some of the tenets of basic Circle life. He posed the question, “OK, so we all know that sex forms a major part of Circle life. As you know, much of the relationships culminate or consummate on the patio or here in the core living room, where everyone can see everyone else. Why do you suppose the Circle has that bias towards exhibitionism and voyeurism?”

Chris Reve was about thirty, had a bushy crop of dark hair and a half-hearted attempt at a beard. He was tall and thin, kind of nerdy, and actually did work with computers setting up smart homes for an AV company in a Chicago suburb.

Chris’ girlfriend was Eva Vega. A ball of energy in her mid-twenties that stood about five feet tall and seemed to be going a thousand miles an hour while she stood still. She was thin and Dave guessed she didn’t even own a training bra. Eva had long brown hair that hung below her butt when she let it out all the way.

Helen had introduced Chris and Eva to Dave and Cricket, and then the five of them sat in the shade on the patio, each having some iced tea on the warm Friday afternoon. Chris and Eva were also wearing new Circle t-shirts that had the colorful emblem of the Circle that so many of the women had gotten as tattoos. Underneath the emblem, was the statement in script, ‘I love the Circle’.

Chris gestured around the patio, taking in about twenty monokinis on the Circle women. ‘This is like a dream – being here, I mean. Eva and I have watched every episode of The Circle TV show a dozen times, trying to memorize the backdrop, so seeing it all put together like this is amazing and surreal.”

Eva said, “We even pieced together a map of the place, including who lived where, but I can see we were wrong in many places. I hope that’s not too invasive.”

Dave said, “Some of the clues on the TV show are intentionally wrong. We have had some problems being harassed in the past that we don’t want repeated. We tried to keep our location a bit vague, as well.”

“You mean when you were bombed,” Eva said energetically. “That was crazy. Thank God no one got hurt. I guess you can’t be an outlier for society and get away scot free.”

Helen urged, “Tell Dave and Cricket about the fan club and your meeting.”

Chris nodded. “Sure. We’re up to about fifteen-hundred members with more applications coming in every day. We do an online newsletter, and by the way, we’ll be reporting about this visit with you. I hope that’s all right. We want to get some photos, too, if that’s okay.

“Anyway, if you’re a fan club member you get access to our moderated blogs, the newsletter, and our email system. We’re looking to provide more benefits every day. New members also get some ‘trash and treasures’ – coffee mugs, commemorative plates, flags, t-shirts and so on – things with this t-shirt emblem on them. We’re still coming up with ideas in that area, too.

“Eva has a connection where she works, and was able to reserve a large indoor arena that seats ten-thousand. It’s just outside the Loop, but very accessible. About two-thirds of our members have bought tickets – about a thousand, so far. You’ll have to be a member to get in at the October conclave.”

Chris turned his iPad around and showed Dave several pictures of the large venue for the October conference. The place looked immense.

“The place has eight breakout rooms around the perimeter of the larger space. The smallest will seat about two hundred people. So, we put together the agenda I think that Helen showed you last week.

‘Dave, you’d be our keynote speaker on Friday evening – a forty-five-minute talk about the Circle, if you please. You could tell some anecdotes, particularly those not in some TV episode or Cricket’s book. Cricket, we hoped you’d be our opening plenary speaker the next day, again in the large space. Same general idea. You can tout your books in any way you want. If you want to talk about your relationship with Scarlett, Felicity, or anybody else, that’d be fabulous.”

Eva jumped in, “We think about three-quarters of our attendees will be women. Helen told us that was the demographic for the TV show, too. If you talked about sex in the Circle from a woman’s point of view that’d be wild and go over well. I’m sure you’ll get a ‘Standing O’ – that’s an ‘O’ for ovation, by the way.