Chapter 1: Off the Record

Wednesday evening Ken and Dave sat at the bar in the media room watching a re-run of an old football game. The TV wasn’t that important; the discussion was. Ken had just finished a ninety-minute flight lesson with Alice. Pam was traveling again.

Ken tentatively said, “Last Saturday night blew me away. Thank you for seeing me. I want to be sure there are no ill feelings by you about me because of my relationship with two of your four wives.”

Dave laughed, “I bet the night did blew you away, and I have no animosity or enmity about you in any way. In case you haven’t noticed, we all live in a large open marriage with each other, plus everyone you meet here is most likely a member of our large polyamorous family. Are you all right with the way things turned out? I know the women ganged up on you and you’ve been invited to a more permanent status with us. They’re very open about sharing their thoughts. Alice and Pam are crushing on you, big time.”

“Yeah. I’ve been chewing on things since. I couldn’t concentrate on much else other than what happened. Nancy talked to me by phone yesterday about my housing situation. Tonight’s dinner with everybody that was here also helped me decide. I do want to join the Circle. I’m not sure of the economics and whether I can afford it, but I’m more than willing to try.”

“There were almost bets that you’d decide that way. Why did you hold off?”

“I have this thing about intimacy and sex. I think I should develop intimacy with a woman I like before we have sexual intimacy. I’m a ‘mind, body, and spirit’ guy. First, we meld our minds together, then our bodies, and then, hopefully, we find that our spirits blend together and we find a unique closeness with each other on many planes.”

“And Saturday was putting the cart before the horse?”

“With some of the women. I was in the process of developing that closeness with Alice and Pam, and then we had sex. I’m cool with that, because I think we keep talking together and growing our relationship. Rachel and I started on that path, too, and then I gave into lust and we started to make love.

“But then Wendy, Kat, and Grace ... attended to me.”

“You can say fucked. My sensibilities won’t be upset.” Dave chuckled.

“OK. They each came to me that night and we fucked. I didn’t have the emotional attachment with them yet. I found the attachment times a thousand with Grace, but I never had time with the other women.”

“Ken, I think you’ll find that you grow that attachment over time. I’ve had some of the same feelings, especially about the order of things. With some of the new women I meet for the first time, I suddenly have found that we’re fucking moments later with minimal connection. I can tell you that my feelings of intimacy and closeness to each of them has grown over time. I nurture those contacts and don’t treat them cavalierly. Allow yourself to be open to the experience of sexual intimacy first, and then take the steps to pursue the other kind of intimacy. You’ll move between the two as each develops, like putting the weight on alternate feet as you walk.”

Ken thought about that. “I can do that.”

Dave teased, “As a jet jockey, I expect you’ve of had a line of women around the block that you were boffing.”

“Not me. I allowed my ego to take me in that direction a few times when I was younger, but I quickly found that the more meaningful relationships and the ones that made me happiest were with women I could talk about anything with, could confide in, and who were my equal. That’s how I feel about Alice, Pam, and now Grace, and somewhat with Rachel.”

“I heard you kind of fell for Grace.”

“Very hard. I think she likes me as well.”

“She does. I heard about that third hand. Jack, her husband, knows, too, and is supportive.”

Ken looked exceptionally pleased.

Dave asked, “Did Alice or someone talk to you about our ... rules, but I hate to use that word. It sounds so authoritarian.”

“Try me,” Ken said.

Dave said, “Where do I start because they’re all interwoven. First off, I guess is our assumption that we live in a world that is loving, kind, and fundamentally spiritual. We aspire to be that way in all our interactions with others. We do not see most things, including relationships as a zero-sum game.”

“Zero-sum game?” Ken asked.

“If I get some, then you don’t. If someone loves me, then they can’t love you. If I give my love to someone then I have to take it away from someone else. Those are examples of a zero-sum game. The opposite is to believe in a life filled with abundance. The more I give away, the more I receive in return. I give my love to each woman in our Circle, and I receive tenfold back to me. That’s hardly a zero-sum game.

“Think about what happened with you, Alice, and Pam. Alice and Pam both fell in love with you. Did their love for me diminish? Not one bit, nor did mine for them. So overall, a surplus of love got generated to share between all of us.”

Ken nodded.

“Accordingly, we are not jealous. That is an unwanted emotion in our Circle. We are not possessive. We treat each other as equals. We share ourselves, but it is all right to say ‘No’ once in a while. ‘No’ means exactly that.” Dave stopped.

Ken waited and then said; “You didn’t say anything about the sex.”

“I don’t know what else to say about it. Maybe ‘consenting adults can do whatever they want about sex.’ That’s a good adage because it puts the emphasis on consent and not based what you do or try to do on assumptions or societal stereotypes. To execute that statement properly calls for some kind of communication between you and your partner or partners. Communications is a hallmark of the Circle.

“If you’re kind, patient, loving, full of compersion – the opposite of jealousy, sharing, non-possessive, and treat people equitably – I guess like the Golden Rule, then everything else in our Circle follows, including the sex.”

Ken said, “I think I’ve been living pretty close to that model, although the bridge to sharing a woman I love with another man is a large one.”

Dave smiled, “Look around you and see whether breaking that model has hurt any of us. If you feel it has, please come to me and talk. I want to know about it, or to try to understand better than I might with superficial knowledge.”

Ken shook his head, “When I first met you, and Alice and Pam were coming on to me, I was really confused. They assured me that you were fine with whatever they did, even having sex. I thought you were a cuckold, but you’re not. I would have expected much different behavior, but you come across as a sane, stable, thoughtful, and brilliant man who is a good leader for the Circle.”

Dave laughed, “Ah, good. My disguise is working and I’m still fooling people.”

Kat and Alice came into the room. They’d been part of the after-dinner cleanup crew. Alice sat is Dave’s lap, and Kat in Ken’s.

Kat said, “We’re feeling deprived.”

“Deprived?” each of the men said in unison.

Alice explained, “It’s been several hours since we had sex, and we were hoping the two of you could fix that situation for us. We’ve talked and we’d like side-by-side repairs to our little pussies, with lots of switching back and forth until we are well and truly lubricated with your rich and valuable internal man oils that you can inject into us.”

Dave laughed, “Sounds like a plan to me. Here or in the house?”

“Oh, here. Others might also get the idea and join us. We need all the help we can get starting with you two handsome devils.”

Before Alice had finished speaking, Ken and Kat were in a deep embrace and French kissing. Dave chuckled to himself, ‘So much for some intimacy and knowing someone well before sex.’ Ken and Kat would become very good friends very soon.

Nancy and Jack sat across the table from Dave and Ty in their roles as the vice president and president of the Circle Cohousing Project. They were at the larger dining room table in the core on Saturday afternoon.

Nancy said, “Since I raised my idea, I’ve talked to Ken, Holly, Christie, Roy, Owen, and Jack – basically all of the single people in the Circle plus our architect. Dave, I didn’t treat your wives as single. I also skipped Rachel due to her young age and her admitted lack of funds, but she might be interested in this over time.”

Jack said, “I like the way Nancy thinks, plus there’s precedent for things like this in some other cohousing projects around the country. I grabbed some sketches and photos of multi-unit town houses similar to the architecture style of your homes on the Circle. I also paid more attention to the site, and I think a nice location for something like this would be partway around Circle Drive, kind of opposite Roy and Owen’s homes near where the road down to the runway branches off. There’s a bit of a hollow there the new buildings could sit in, so any edifice would sit lower than they otherwise would be.”

“How many square feet?” Ty asked.

Jack responded, “I’m guessing around fifteen hundred or so for each unit, might suffice for each unit. I don’t think we’d have to go much higher, especially since we assume the residents will be making extensive use of the core facilities.”

“How many units do you think we need? What if more people come and join us? I’m thinking we have something very unique here and people want ‘in’ on it. A small trend has already started. The other thing is that we sold off our guest house to my brother and his wife, so maybe we need space for guest visitors.”

Jack held up his hand. “Hey, I’m the architect. I create buildings and modifications that meet my client’s needs. The Circle is my client in this case, and I am only one opinion. I would need to talk to everybody in the Circle to get their opinions and wishes in order to answer those questions. Nancy has made a start on it. The question about the future of the Circle sounds like the more important one to me.”

Dave said, “One thing is going to create a major disruption to our way of life in the near future, babies. That may not impact the idea of town houses or apartments, but it will sure change our way of life in other ways.”

“Are you trying to tell us something?” Ty teased as he sat back in his chair.

“No, but I can hear a loud synchronized ticking sound every time we’re all together, especially when Matthew is around playing near the pool, for instance. The women look at him with motherly instincts every time he’s here.”

Ty’s statement about the Circle having something very unique and that other people would like to get in on it turned out to be prophetic. On Friday, he called Dave to explain.

“Dave, I got a call from guy named Carl McNally. He works at the Tampa Tribune, and they are affiliated with the Sarasota Herald in some way. He wants to do a story on the Circle Cohousing Project.”

“Shit. How’d he hear about us? We’re not exactly main stream story material or known about that widely.”

“He didn’t say and I was too flummoxed to ask at the time. He wants to meet with you and me – officers of the board, and then also talk to at least two women who are part of the Circle. He didn’t seem to know anything about the sex, but he knew we’d been neighbors back over in Oakwood and had formed this compound instead of living near each other over there. Maybe one of our old neighbors cued him in. Anyway, he’d like to meet with us next week some time.”

“Evening? Weekend? I’m away for a few days during the week. We need to invite a couple of the women, too. Saturday, late morning, or afternoon would work best for me.”

Ty said, “I’ll see whether I can get him to meet with us then. You, the two women, and I should talk about what to say before we talk to him.”

“I agree. Maybe Sunday afternoon, and then we have a week to think about it. I’m thinking that Pam and Wendy should be the two women, and maybe Alice. They’ve been on the project since its conception and are both articulate and not all related to you or me. Any of them could participate, actually.”

Sunday afternoon Ty, Dave, Alice, Pam, and Wendy sat around one of the patio tables. They were nude and working on their all-over tans as they chatted about Carl McNally’s impending visit the following Sunday shortly after lunch.

Wendy laughed, “So, we don’t tell him about our nightly orgies, the wife swapping, and the dens of iniquity that we’ve created? That’s all the really interesting and newsworthy stuff. Everything else rates as boring.”

“Not unless we want several hundred peeping toms and dirty old men slinking around the perimeter of the Circle trying to view it all,” Dave said with a chuckle.

“Oh, I look forward to the guys with raincoats flashing us as we drive in and out of the gate. Maybe we can flash them, too.” Wendy hefted up one of her bulbous tits and oscillated it around seductively.

Ty brought the meeting back to order. “So, if the questions are about the mechanics, structures, and rules of the Cohousing Project, refer them to Dave or me, and if they’re about how we ‘feel’ about the Project and living here, we defer to the women, but also the men can answer as they see fit.”

Alice asked, “What else would we get questions about?”

Wendy speculated, “What’s it like living here? Why cohousing? We can talk about that: committee work assignments, our social life – the public G-rated version, community meals, our library, ride sharing and carpooling, the core library, and the other stuff.”

“Anything else?”

Ty volunteered, “I’d think about joint exercises and yoga, the gym, our meditation sessions, the flying lessons you’re taking, and that kind of stuff, too.”

“Does everybody else know to be on their best behavior?”

Ty nodded, “I think so. I put a sign up on the white board about next Sunday.”

Wendy said, “We should be sure that Matthew is here, maybe even with Heather’s mother. His presence will give the Circle a family atmosphere. The newspaper guy will love that aspect of things. Tell him how Holly taught Matt how to swim and dive. That’ll help tout the benefits of this life style and the Project.”

Sunday a week later at one o’clock, Dave buzzed Carl into the Circle property. He went to curbside to welcome the news media reporter. Not only was Carl McNally in the car, but also so was Erin Steckler, another reporter in her twenties. Dave led them through his home towards the core.

“I thought I’d pass you through my home so you’d get a feel for things. Those of us living in the Circle all have homes of this style and architecture, although we chose different square footage homes and layouts for various reasons. Mine happens to be the largest.” Dave kept walking towards the corridor to the core. “All of the homes have a covered walkway to the core facilities. In good weather we open it up. If it’s cold or hot, we can close the sides and have it heated or cooled. Any of the homes can reach the core rooms without needing to go outside – a good option during the monsoon season.”

Dave put in a plug for Suntech, the company for which he’d just become a director. “We may go for solar electric in the near future, at least for some of our power needs. We still need to evaluate things, look at costs and such, but the idea is on our radar screen.”

Dave led them into the core, coming out right between the core building and the pool patio. “All the homes share the patio, large pool, pool house or cabana, pergola, and all the outdoor dining equipment – the grill, tables, chairs, chaises, and so on. Inside the building, come this way, are our common area living room, library, media room, dining area, kitchen, gym, sauna, indoor Jacuzzi, and a few other rooms for special projects and crafts. Many of the walls are temporary so we can move them around inexpensively as our needs change.”