Chapter 19: Sometimes...

October 2, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

The attendance at the Rap Session was better than I’d expected. Most of the kids from the spring returned, though one or two had graduated. Elizabeth, Claire, Becka, Marie Annette, Laurie, Ben, Mike, Carissa, Wanda, Stacy, Ted, Bev, Henry, Gaby, Trish, Kajri, Cèlia, and Cindi were all in attendance. Ken and Joan didn’t show up, which didn’t surprise me. And of course, my wives, Michelle, and Elyse were in the great room as well. I’d thought more about Jamie’s statements about the Rap Sessions and decided I wasn’t going to change anything, at least not in the short term.

“If you invited someone, I’d like you to introduce them,” I said.

“This is our friend Kylie,” Ben said. “She’s a Freshman from Tallahassee, Florida, and is pre-med.”

“Run for your life!” Jessica laughed. “Seriously!”

“You must be ‘Doctor Jessica’,” Kylie said brightly. “Elizabeth told me all about you!”

“Suddenly I’m scared!” Jessica laughed. “What kind of medicine do you want to practice?”

“I’m not sure, but I was thinking oncology. My aunt died last year of pancreatic cancer and I want to help find a way to beat it.”

“Let’s talk afterwards,” Jessica said.

“Sure!”

“These are my friends Maureen and Ryanne,” Becka said. “They’re twins from St. Louis. Maureen is pre-law, and wants to be the first female President of the United States!”

“Well,” I laughed, “that tells me she’ll fit right into our insanity! She’s certifiable if she wants THAT job!”

“You aren’t the first person to say that!” Maureen laughed.

Becka continued, “And Ryanne is majoring in business and wants to be a Fortune 100 CEO.”

“No lack of ambition there, either!” Elyse laughed, but then gave me a look.

The look was because the twins had red hair, green eyes, and what Elyse liked to call ‘Steve-type’ bodies. Elyse’s look made me immediately wonder what a ‘Steve Sandwich’ between those two would be like! I took a couple of deep breaths and shoved THAT notion into the ‘fantasy storage’ area of my head.

“This is my friend Dale,” Carissa said. “He’s a Freshman from Vancouver studying anthropology and archaeology.”

“So he’s looking for his mummy?” Laurie giggled.

Everyone laughed.

“Like I haven’t heard THAT one before!” he said with a grin.

“I guess I’m last,” Laurie said. “This is Milt. He’s a Junior from Sioux City, Iowa, and majoring in Microbiology.”

“Welcome! I hope everyone had the chance to read, or reread, The Republic and Nineteen Eighty-Four. If not, you should do your best to read them in the next two weeks. Also, I want to make sure nobody is caught unawares or is surprised by anything here.”

“That’ll be the day!” Elizabeth laughed.

I smiled, ignored her, and continued.

“The strawberry blonde to my left is my legal wife, Doctor Jessica Adams, a trauma surgeon who’s currently doing her Fellowship at Cook County Hospital. The blonde to my right is our wife, Professor Kara Adams, PhD candidate and professor of chemistry at UofC. And yes, I mean ‘our’ wife. She, Jessica, and I consider ourselves married. I have two children by each of them. The young woman in the blue jeans and yellow blouse is Elyse Clarke, CFO of my company and mother to two of my boys. I have one other son; he’s at hockey practice with his two moms. One of them was my High School girlfriend who turned out to be lesbian. She and her wife wanted a son, so I provided the necessary assistance.”

Elyse laughed, “Necessary assistance? You screwed her silly to make that kid!”

I chuckled, “As I said, necessary assistance! I wanted to get that all out on the table so nobody is confused or unaware. The people who have been here before know that I have a VERY open set of relationships, and everyone knows what’s going on. I occasionally have other lovers as well. I’m not cheating and this isn’t a cult or anything like that. It’s simply a group of people who’ve chosen a lifestyle that is at odds with society. You’ll hear a LOT more about that in the future.”

“It’s not quite open enough,” Marie Annette complained quietly, but loud enough for me and a few others to hear her.

“Marie Annette!” Becka said firmly. “Don’t!”

I didn’t need to say anything because Becka had quickly intervened and that was a good thing.

“Let’s talk first about what a dystopia is,” I said. “Anyone want to venture a definition?”

“The opposite of a utopia,” Dale said.

“But what does ‘utopia’ mean?” Elizabeth asked, beating me to the question.

“A perfect world, or nearly perfect, I guess,” he replied.

“No,” Elizabeth countered, “I mean what does the word actually mean? In Greek?”

“I don’t know, actually.”

“It means ‘no place’,” she replied. “As in, it doesn’t exist.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And of course, there’s a method to my madness...”

“That’ll be the day!” Cindi teased, to much laughter.

“ ... in that the first recorded utopian proposal occurs in The Republic. To counter-balance that, we have Orwell’s completely dystopian England.”

“Where sex is a form of rebellion!” Elizabeth laughed.

“I can see where THIS is going,” I chuckled.

“You started it by talking about your harem!” she countered.

Jessica and Kara squealed in protest.

“Harem? Excuse me?” Kara protested, trying to sound upset, but she was laughing too hard. “Just because Snuggle Bear likes sex and has freedom, does NOT mean we are members of a harem!”

“That’s for DAMNED sure!” Elyse laughed.

“Bummer!” Cindi teased.

“ANYWAY,” I said, trying to get things back on track, “let’s talk about Plato’s ‘ideal’ society. Does anyone see any problems with it?”

“The very rigid caste structure,” Kajri said. “We’ve seen just how well THAT has worked in India.”

“He also proposed that human reproduction should be regulated by the government and kids shouldn’t know who their biological parents are,” Mike said.

“That sounds like Brave New World,” Maureen said. “We read that during our Senior year in High School.”

“So,” I asked. “How many people here would want to live in Plato’s version of the perfect world?”

No hands were shown, as I’d expected.

“It’s not all that much different from Orwell’s picture of the UK,” Ben said. “The only difference is Plato somehow thinks the ruling elite will ensure everything is perfect and equitably distributed, and that education can ensure the ruling elite will always behave in the best interest of society. But we’ve never seen that happen in the history of the world!”

“Which tells you what?” I asked.

“‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men’,” he said.

“Lord Acton,” I acknowledged. “He supported the South during the Civil War, not because he agreed with slavery, but because he was concerned that centralizing all power in Washington, DC, would, based on all historical precedent, result in tyranny. My personal belief is we’re well on the way there.”

“Oh come on,” Kylie said. “You have to follow the law so you declare it tyranny?”

“Did you know that both adultery and pre-marital sex are Class A misdemeanors in Illinois, with punishments of up to a year in jail?” I asked.

“What?!” she gasped.

“It’s true. I was actually investigated by the police for that, though the investigation was dropped.”

“Small amounts of marijuana will get you a felony conviction,” Ben said. “Three to five years in prison.”

“Putting a prescription drug in any container that isn’t properly labeled, even if you do it at home, is a felony,” Jessica said. “And I could lose my license under certain conditions for refusing to violate patient confidentiality.”

“Don’t even get me started on Civil Forfeiture!” Henry said. “If you’re caught with a single joint in your car, the government can seize it because it was being ‘used in a crime’. And that’s being expanded. The Trib just ran an article on cars being seized from people who solicited prostitutes.”

“And here’s the nasty secret about that,” I said. “The property is accused of the crime, not you, so none of the usual constitutional protections apply. You have to prove the alleged crime DIDN’T happen.”

“And let’s not forget how Grand Juries have been completely corrupted to be tools for prosecutors and regular juries are stacked against defendants,” Trish said.

“I stumbled into a room full of crazy liberals,” Kylie said, shaking her head.

“Only if you mean that in the classical sense,” I said. “We’re mostly libertarian or at least for limited government. In the final analysis, we just want everyone to leave us alone and let us live in peace as we see fit. We haven’t even made some of our best arguments. If Jennifer were here, you’d get an earful about how she’s not permitted to marry her life partner, how homosexual sex is illegal in some states, and so on.”

“The ‘War on Drugs’ is creating an ever-more tyrannical government, with ever-more controls on the daily lives of citizens,” Gaby said. “Laws which were claimed to only apply to drug kingpins are being applied to everyday citizens.”

“I’ll give you a perfect example,” Kara said. “Steve’s little sister had a party here, and one of her friends, without any of us having any knowledge about it until she was passed out on the floor of the bathroom, used cocaine and overdosed. It was entirely possible for any of us who lived here to be arrested, and to have the house seized by the government.”

“Bullshit,” Kylie objected. “They’d never do that!”

Claire spoke up, “And you want to rely on the goodwill of elected prosecutors and judges, who make names for themselves by ‘busting’ criminals? On the notions of ‘justice’ of politicians who get elected by being ‘tough on crime’?”

“I’m a practicing attorney,” Trish said. “And it’s not ‘bullshit’. It happens.”

The debate continued, and I was actually pleased at the results. The new students all seemed to be willing to listen, even if they didn’t necessarily agree. I felt that was a good sign and a good start. I believed I’d selected the right set of books to start us in the direction I wanted to go. When the discussion finally wound down around 4:00pm, we brought out refreshments.

I circulated, trying to talk to each of the new students, and wandered over to where Becka and Claire were standing with Maureen and Ryanne.

“Nice to meet you both,” I said.

“Claire warned us this was a crazy place, but that it was a LOT of fun! I really liked the discussion. You really have kids by all those women?”

“I do,” I said.

“Wild,” Ryanne said. “I hear you have a sauna and that can be pretty crazy, too!”

I chuckled, “Claire and Becka have been telling ALL my secrets!”

Claire winked at me, then grabbed Becka’s arm and led her away, leaving me with the two gorgeous redheads.

“Becka and Claire said you could help us with something,” Maureen said.

Given how things had changed in the previous two days, including Mitsuko talking about finding a boyfriend, I was SURE I could help these two with whatever issue they might have! The question had to be ‘should I?’ not ‘could I?’, and the answer to THAT would depend on a host of things. About me, not about them.

“Probably.”

“Well, first, I understand you know lots of lawyers because of your company.”

“That’s true, though Trish is actually a lawyer.”

“I talked with her, but she’s pretty junior and only knows her firm and some other junior lawyers. She agreed you could put me in touch with somewhere I might be able to get a summer job?”

“I’m sure I could. I’m guessing you’ll want something like litigation or criminal defense for the courtroom stuff? Not business?”

“Yes.”

“I can think of a couple of good names to give you after Christmas, which is when they start their search for summer interns. If you hang around so I get to know you, then I can give you a recommendation that’ll carry some real weight.”

“Cool!” Maureen said.

“And I guess you know lots of places I might be able to intern to get some business experience?” Ryanne asked.

“I have quite a few contacts, yes.”

“Awesome! We want to hang out here! And we’d LOVE to use the sauna!” Ryanne declared saucily.

“Did Claire and Becka tell you EVERYTHING about the sauna?” I asked.

She laughed, “And WAY more.”

I chuckled and shook my head, “Did she tell you the ground rules, too?”

“Yes.”

“Let me talk about it with Jessica and Kara. OK?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks,” I grinned. “See you in two weeks?”

“You bet!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

Next, I went to talk with Elizabeth and Ben. They were still dating and both were doing well in school. They were the last to leave, and when they did, Jessica, Kara, and I went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

“I saw you talking with those two perfect redheads,” Jessica said as she got ingredients from the fridge.

“They implied they were interested,” I said. “But that doesn’t really fit our agreement.”

“The only agreement is for you to follow your rules. Well, and the cardinal rule about STD tests. Tiger, you are who you are. Will you get it through your thick head we’ve agreed to this?”

“She’s right, Steve,” Kara said. “You and Michelle agreed that you probably are actually the damaged one, and with good reason. You run to us for approval which you don’t need. You keep asking us the same questions over and over. It’s like you don’t believe us or trust us. Does this sound familiar?”

“Shit,” I sighed. “I’m doing it to both of you, too!”

“What would you tell one of your team who ran to you to validate every little decision they made?”

“‘Manage your team’ is my usual response to that kind of thing. And if it persisted, I’d mentor them to make decisions and move forward.”

“And you trust them when they tell you what they think?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “I see your point.”

“Sometimes you’re fine, like in Europe,” Kara said. “You didn’t call us and ask about any of the girls. Not even Elena who was technically a rules violation.”

“There’s no ‘technically’ about it,” I replied. “She WAS a rules violation. But I made a conscious decision to set the rule aside given the circumstances. An exception that proves the rule, as Jennifer likes to call it.”

“And you didn’t call us to confirm it was OK to do that. So what’s the difference? That we were out of sight and out of mind?”

“Maybe,” I allowed.

“Jess, I think from now on, our only answer to Steve should be ‘manage your sex life’.”

“Perfect!” Jessica agreed. “So, with regard to the cute, red-headed twins, manage your sex life, Tiger.”

“But make sure we get the juicy details!” Kara giggled.

I understood their point, but wondered what the pattern of my life going forward should look like. Was it like Europe? Or was it more like the US, where I’d found fewer, but longer-term lovers? I wasn’t going to solve that dilemma while we were making dinner; it was something I would have to think long and hard about.

October 3, 1994, Chicago, Illinois

“I think we need to talk,” I said to Michelle as we walked into the NIKA office on Monday morning.

“About?”

“Let’s get our coffee and go sit in the ‘Orr’ room.”

We went to the break room and got our coffee then went to the conference room.

“Is there a problem?” Michelle asked.

“Sorry, no. I just have some practical questions. This isn’t about me being upset or thinking what we discussed resulted in a wrong conclusion. Well, it wasn’t the one I desired, but you know what I mean.”

“Sure. So?”

“Do you plan to stay at the house?”

“For as long as you’ll let me. Obviously, when I get married I would move out.”

“Obviously. I do want you to stay. And I want to resume our talks.”

“Good,” Michelle said with a smile. “I think they’ll be better. More like they were before the first time we made love.”

“You think that interfered?”

“Don’t you?”

“Maybe,” I said after a moment’s consideration. “I hadn’t really thought about it because I slept with my previous spiritual guide and it worked out just fine without causing problems.”

“Did it? Really?”

“Yes, because I acknowledged I was broken and she certainly wasn’t.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake!” Michelle laughed. “How many times do you need to hear the same message? That was ten years ago, right?”