Chapter 17: Another Patio Party

The Halloween party was a blowout, just like the previous party Dave threw on the patio. The weather was warm and clear, too; and that time of year there could have been a Category 5 hurricane arriving on the scene.

About three-hundred people showed up including the entire upper management team of the utility where Dave worked and of Knightsbridge Manufacturing where Alice, Dori, Abby, and Roy worked. Doug and Pete brought everyone that worked at Sky Ranch, and there were a few other companies well represented because Circle members worked there.

There was the usual mix of costumes spread out among the attendees: zombies, witches, princesses, genies, nurses, doctors, astronauts, batmans, supermans, superwomans, cat womans, sea captains, farmers, cowboys, school girls, and girl scouts. Some of the Circle women spiced up their costumes with minimal clothing, but nothing was really over the top because so many executives from important companies were present.

Donna had again been coopted into being the Chief Party Planner, and she’d done an outstanding job. The same band as at Dave’s first party came back providing a great mix of music to both listen to and dance to. The caterers left people feeling awesome about their meals and hors d’oeuvres, and when the desserts were brought out – in Halloween format and colors, of course – everyone gathered and applauded the catering crew to their amazement.

Joan and Pam waddled around greeting people when they weren’t sitting uncomfortably waiting for the stork to arrive or heading off to the bathroom because of the pressure of the impending babies on their bladders. Pam thought of herself as overdue at that point.

Owen had managed to snag Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence (again), and Bradley Cooper as the ‘token’ celebrities to mix with the crowd. They were all doing movies or appearances in Florida, so he just put a gentle arm on them to appear and had his helicopter pick them up at the right time. He’d put them all up at the new Westin hotel in downtown Sarasota after flying them right into Circle Airport to their delight. The four had already been briefed on the culture and lifestyle of the Circle by Owen, but expressed constant curiosity to see it all in action around the edges of the party.

Scarlett, dressed as Little Bo Peep, searched out Dave at one point and the two engaged in quite a long discussion about the Circle including the group’s philosophy about relationships and sex. By the end of their forty-minute chat, she understood clearly that he had four ‘wives’, that the Circle consisted of many fluid relationships that usually involved sex, and the major tenets of those living together in the cohousing project.

Dave had initially been intimidated and a little embarrassed in sharing so much detail with Scarlett, but she had a knack of putting him at ease and getting him to talk and respond to questions. He later thought she’d left no stone unturned in her questioning about the Circle.

Scarlett expressed neither approval nor disapproval of the lifestyle. She was thoughtful about it all, obviously taking it all in as a learning experience. Dave guessed that the press of being a celebrity prevented even experimenting with the lifestyle, lest they be crucified in the media that seemed to enjoy sex, but only as they defined how to make it acceptable.

As slightly lesser celebs, Ken Toomey and Patti Turner were also present. They’d flown to their SRQ ‘home’ on the newly inaugurated Atlantic Airlines flight from Raleigh. They were living out of Dave and Alice’s guest suite, but that wasn’t that burdensome on anybody since the couple was on the road much of the time.

Dave had also invited the surrounding neighbors to the party. More of them showed up this time, especially after the word got back from those that came in the afternoon about the movie stars and celebs that were present. Billionaire Owen being present wasn’t unnoticed either.

To augment some of the ‘spooky’ decorations typical of Halloween, the Cessna 152 had been towed up the road down to the airport, and a small crane had hoisted the plane up on top of the Circle core living room just above the patio and set at a rakish angle. The plane had been decked out in crazy Halloween lights, and then a blow-up ghost and Frankenstein were each getting out of one of the doors of the plane. The ploy provoked lots of discussion about how the plane had ‘landed’ on the roof.

Dave had let it be known that families were welcome, so a few of the outsiders had come with teens or youngsters. There were also a few babies held or wheeled around by outsiders. They joined the contingent of babies Circle members brought for show ‘n tell.

Bobbie was off the hook for all meals that day because of the catering. She was just enjoying herself fully. Maddy had opted to work, and enlisted a couple of local high school seniors to help manage all the babies. They’d set up a penned area in the living room, so kids and parents could see each other, but the parents didn’t have to micro-manage their child. Matthew had even been enlisted to help with the’ little kids’, a point that made him feel like a ‘Big Boy’.

At nine o’clock, there was again a fireworks display over one of the fields. Because of the lack of rain a fire truck had been hired to stand-by and extinguish any sparks that made it to the ground and the dried grass. Fortunately, there were no incidents. Most of the guests left after the fireworks. There was a joke around the city that had a population greatly tilted towards the elderly that nine p.m. was what was called Sarasota Midnight.

The band reduced itself to a jazz quartet playing very danceable but slow numbers after the fireworks. With the movie stars gone and the party population reduced significantly, Dave started to enjoy the party more rather than feeling he had to circulate and mingle, especially with the other execs from the utility. Almost all of them had left anyway. Nancy also could catch her breath.

Alice, Dori, and Roy, too, had felt they had to mingle with others from Knightsbridge. She and the others that worked there did a credible job of involving everybody in the party activities and making them feel welcome.

Alice grabbed Dave on the way back from watching the fireworks on their front stoop with a few others. “Can I have the next dance?”

“You can have all my dances from here on out,” he said as he hugged her. He turned her and kissed her, “Have I told you lately what a fabulous wife you are?”

Alice teased, “I’ve loosened up, right?”

“Hey, we both did.”

“So did your mother; did you see her dancing with Jim Parker – your utility’s CEO?”

“No, what’d I miss?” he spoke quickly and sounded very worried.

“Just she was being very pleasing. It was a slow song, and so she plastered her lithe body against him and the two did a groin grind for the entire song. He had a huge lump in his pants when they stopped. They even kissed.”

“Oh, shit. I don’t need that to be happening.” Dave held his head in both hands.

“They didn’t talk the rest of the evening, so I think that was just a little teasing on her part. I bet he doesn’t even know the relation between Elise and you.”

“I hope not, especially if she was in the role of ‘bad mother’.”

After the husband-wife dance, Alice went off to bid some colleagues goodbye. Dave stood for a few seconds on the edge of the dance floor, and then felt a pair of feminine arms wrap around him.

He spoke over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of brunette hair as he turned. “Hmmmm. Delightful arms. Shorter than me. Brunette. Seems very loving and affectionate. OOOH! Likes to grind her mons into my ass. Let me narrow that down a little ... would you care to dance, Patti?”

There was a small squeak. “How’d you know it was me?”

“How’d you know I was Dave? I like you and am learning your look and feel.”

“I want to have you study that in depth a little later after things thin out. Could we go off again? And, yes, I’ll dance with you.”

Dave adopted an intimate dance posture with the woman currently living in his guest room and the girlfriend of his friend and former flight instructor Ken. She snuggled into his arms. “Oh, you are the best cuddler of any man I know. I wish you’d give lessons to Ken.”

“Only if he asks, and don’t go comparing the men to each other, especially in conversations. I think it could be demoralizing, especially coming from someone as hot as yourself.”

Patti leaned up and kissed Dave. She wearing her flight attendant’s uniform for Atlantic Airlines as her costume, but had put on some very sexy CFM heels to amplify her height and make her legs more attractive. She’d also put on a skirt that was especially short, making her about the sexiest flight attendant anybody would ever find.”

Dave kissed back and promised an ‘interlude’ with her a little later.

Patti asked as they danced, “You were really surprised that I blended into the Circle so quickly weren’t you?”

“I was astounded. You arrive, and a few hours later it was like you’d been hanging around with us all your life.”

“And the fact that I’m hypersexual seemed to help, too.” She laughed.

“It still helps,” Dave teased. “Yes, it did. You were trying to ‘do’ all the men that one night, weren’t you?”

“I would have succeeded except that other women had worn our Roy, Paul, and Derek. I had fun with them the next evening, plus now I think I’ve properly consorted with all of the women, although that took a little longer.”

“I’m glad you like us, because we sure love you.”

“I love this. I was born to live like this. I just wish I didn’t have to be on the road quite so much. I heard about one of your rants about taking control of your work-life balance and not letting a job rule you.”

“What were you like growing up?”

Patti laughed, “A bit of a slut in hindsight. I really learned about sex and how much I liked it at a young age. I usually had multiple boyfriends at the same time. Before you ask, I told them that if they were bothered by that they wouldn’t be my boyfriend; they had to just suck-it-up and forget any rivalry to be with me, or not be in my Circle.

“I did all the things a cute, well-shaped young woman would do. I was a cheerleader, prom queen, on all the school committees, and then did much the same in college, except I was also active in a sorority. I joined Northern Airlines right out of school and was doing a lot of stuff to position myself for seniority when Atlantic bought them. A few factors worked in my favor, so if I picked the right routes, I got to be the senior attendant. I met Ken, and bingo, here I am.”

“What’d he say that got you interested in the Circle? I know you told Alice all this, but I never heard it first hand.”

“We were doing a lot of flights together and we were both horny, so by some amazing twist of fate we ended up fucking each other’s brains out in a lot of cities on the Atlantic Airlines route map. We fell in love, too, but we both made sure the other knew that while we loved them, we also wanted to be nonexclusive.

“Ken readily agreed with what I told him, and I asked him why he found that so easy to agree to. I’d been with other guys and they wanted to possess me; he didn’t. Over a few nights, he slowly revealed about the Circle and how he’d adopted and integrated how you live into his own life. He also told about how he wanted to get back to living with here.

“We had a lot of deep discussions. We were practically living together by the time the 737 about fell out of the sky. Ken managed to get us both assigned to that marketing task force, and we came and saw you. By then, I heard all about the Circle and decided it was some kind of heaven on earth, and I wanted to see if he was trolling me or this place was real.

“I knew as soon as I met you, Alice, and Pam that this was the real deal. You were exactly as Ken described. Well, Pam was a lot more pregnant than he remembered.

“By the end of my first hour here, after everyone was gathering for the Friday cocktail hour, I knew I couldn’t live any place else. You might wonder what I saw in that hour? I saw a large group of people that all loved each other and was glad to be together after whatever else they’d been doing. They’re an eclectic bunch, too. Nobody’s the same as anybody else. All that was without the sex, but I could feel the pulsing undercurrent between the men and women. God, some of those kisses melted my nylons.”

Dave posed, “So, were you attracted to the situation or the people?”

“Both. You can’t separate them. The situation you have here wouldn’t exist without the people and the people have created the situation they want. People are managing their work-life balance. To cap all that off, I met Kat.”

Dave laughed, he could guess what was coming.

“Well, I asked Kat what she did, and I guess she trusted me from the get-go, because almost her first words to me were ‘I do the editing on porn films; wanna see some of my stuff?’ I briefly thought she was kidding, and so I called her bluff. She led me over to Mike and Clarisse’s house but talked about Mike having a college girl and two guys in on Monday for filming, and how she had about twenty hours of videos from multiple cameras she needed to distill down to one coherent hour-long video. I started to believe her. She then showed me what she’d been working on using the computer at her workstation. My God, the film was sexy as all fuck.”