Chapter 20: Challenged to Loosen Up

Jason and Nancy arrived at the same time from different directions. He had dressed casually for the office in shorts, loafers, and a golf shift, and although he looked casual, he also looked like a successful attorney and business-like. Nancy was wearing her monokini the same way Patti and Bobbie were at the patio table. Robyn was in sport clothes and Amanda was wearing both parts of a bikini. There was a round of greetings, and then everyone sat.

As Jason and Nancy got to the large table, his eyes again bugged out of his head as he ogled all the bare breasts at the table.

Robyn spoke, “I’m over here, Jason. Stop staring. It’s impolite.”

“Oops, sorry,” he said as he sat in the chair Dave offered. “I’ve been reading legal cases dealing with cohousing developments for three hours. The sight of you all or rather all of you is considerably better and more interesting.”

Bobbie ran her finger along the edge of her monokini as though she were going pull the small garment down her legs. “We could make it even more interesting for you.”

“I may expire due to a serious aortic failure if that were to occur. Have you all been thinking of ways to tease me all afternoon?”

Robyn said, “No. Dave and Nancy just got here a few minutes ago. Amanda and I were trying to figure out how to get Dave to make love to us, since he keeps putting up obstacles. Patti and Bobbie were providing comic relief.”

Patti harrumphed, “Well, now I know what all that sage advice was worth.” As Jason looked at her, she shimmied her breasts at him and grinned in a real come-on.

Dave said to Jason, “Some days, holding an adult conversation around here is hard to do.”

“Oh, hard,” Robyn said. “Dave said something is hard. I like hard.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

Dave said, “Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, your lovely and sexy wife is seeking your awareness that she is on a mission regarding our intimacy. She also has a related assignment with Amanda that I gave her.”

“How would that work?” Jason asked.

Robyn said to him in an exasperated tone, “I would like to make love with David. He would like to make love with me, and also Amanda. He has bound us together at the wrist and told us that we must be a package deal, and that we, too, must also make love for him to see. Mr. Prentiss apparently gets his rocks off watching girl-on-girl action.”

Dave nodded, “I do; I think all of the men in the Circle do. That also wasn’t quite what I said, but you’ll come around to seeing it my way.”

Jason added, “I do, too. Sounds like a worthy threesome to me.”

Robyn was surprised, “So, you don’t care who I have sex with?”

Jason laughed, “That’s not what you asked. You wanted me to be ‘aware’, you said, of an impending threesome with you, Amanda, and Dave. All right, I’m aware, and I hope you all achieve some orgasmic nirvana. I do care whom you have sex with because I want you to be loved, unhurt, protected, and safe. In some of your moods, now that you are loosening up, I fear you’ll go down to the local bar and take on all comers. That would not be a good choice of ways to sate your newly discovered hypersexuality.”

Dave picked up on his comment, “Is she or are you just teasing her?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “She has phases where she is so hyper or manic in terms of sex that I can’t keep up with her. I can often rise to the occasion, so to speak, but not as often as she does.”

“Why don’t you tell her to get a lover?” Dave teased.

Jason chuckled, “I have. We were thinking that Dale might fill that bill, but since we did our little swap, we learned that he had twenty-five or so other women to please here in the Circle.”

Bobbie further teased, “There’s always several lesbian lovers.”

Jason teased back, “It wouldn’t bother me, especially if I could watch her in action.”

Robyn allowed, “Susan and I did play around a little, but I’d not done anything like that before, even experimentally in college as so many other women did. I was a goody-goody two-shoes, AND I happened to like men a lot more than women, at least at that time.”

Amanda teased her, “So, our big date is off?”

Robyn winked at her, “I’m thinking about it, Darling.”

Amanda then slowly admitted, “Robyn, I’ve never done anything with another female either.” She indicated Bobbie and Patti, “These two talk about it like sapphic behavior is one of the best things in the world.”

Bobbie and Patti laughed. Bobbie said, “Because it is.”

Patti backed her up, “I agree, although I’m not about to give up men.”

Nancy pointed at the two and said, “I’m with them. We have an almost two-to-one imbalance of women-to-men in the Circle. Further, we would all rate ourselves as hypersexual, at least most of the time, so you’re not out of line there. That means either you spend a lot of time with some battery-operated boyfriend, our sybian, or being frustrated, or you totally accept and enjoy female-female-male encounters, or you discover how pleasing it is to just be sexual with another female.”

Robyn said, “But I like men – Jason – so much, and Dale, and I’m sure Dave.”

Nancy continued, “So, pretend for a while that you’re bisexual. I kind of did when I started, but I really enjoy ANY combination of people I’m with now.”

“What was your last great threesome?” Amanda asked.

Nancy chuckled, “Well, I lucked out. I had Sean and Mike doing me at the same time – DP and all that entails. That was rare though. Before that it was Dave doing Joan, Susan, and me. Whichever pair of women were free were doing each other. I don’t think I’ve ever had so many orgasms in one sexual session. Group sessions with more than one female are the norm ... and fun.”

Amanda said sotto voce, “I wouldn’t even know how to start.”

Robyn nodded and pointed at Amanda beside her. “What she said.”

Dave said in a somewhat serious tone, “Then why don’t the two of you go off and figure it out. You can even use the big bed in my house or the guest room with the bed made up for greater assurance of privacy.”

“Really!” Robyn said, looking somewhat aghast at him. “You want us to go off – now – and figure out how to be sexual with each other?”

Dave shook his head. “That’s only part of it. I want you to go off and figure out how to love one another in mind, body, and spirit. I want you to feel in love with and committed to each other. Moreover, I don’t expect that to develop over an hour, but you could get a good start. I suspect it’ll take you a week or three, at a minimum, but I’m open to surprises. After the two of you achieve some kind of nirvana, relate what you learn to the rest of the Circle.”

Robyn stood and put her hand out for Amanda to take. “Come on, Amanda. We have work to do. Let’s start by taking a walk around the Circle.” The two walked off between two of the houses to the sidewalk around the homes rather than going directly into Dave’s home.

Bobbie said, “You were kind of hard on them.”

“They need to loosen up. Both of them are too focused on themselves, me, on males, and on membership in the Circle, rather than on the real reason one should want to join the Circle. Sure, sex is part of it, but there’s lots more, as you know.”

Jason seemed relaxed about the whole situation. “I’ll be curious to see the outcome of this. Actually, I’m sure of the outcome, just not sure of the pace or the path she’ll take to get there.”

Tuesday, as Dave arrived home, Kat met him at his driveway. She waved him to a stop. “Go directly to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Your cellphone is off. Pam just left five minutes ago. Water broke. Mike is driving her. The hospital said they’d have a wheelchair and a delivery room ready. And turn on your phone. I bet the ringer is off!”

The squeal of tires as he headed back to the gate testified as to how much Dave wanted to be present in the delivery room with his wife. Dave checked and sure enough he’d forgotten to turn the ringer back on after his last afternoon meeting.

Fifteen minutes later, Dave found Mike in the waiting room of the obstetrics unit. Mike was a calming influence. “She’s fine, and in a good state of mind. She’s anxious to get this all over with. You’re supposed to go to the nursing station over there and get a set of scrubs so you can go in the delivery room. You need to wash up, too.”

Dave followed directions, and a few minutes later found Pam in one of the delivery rooms with two nurses attending to her, and the doctor checking in and out every ten or fifteen minutes.

Pam winced through another major contraction. “This sucks.”

Dave philosophized, “It’s karma. You go through this bit of pain, and then we have the delight of a child. I love you.”

“I’m nervous and hungry and wildly thirsty. Please get me a glass of Chardonnay.”

The nearest nurse said, “You’ll have to rough it for a few more minutes otherwise what you take in will come right back out the same way when you start to push. I’ve seen it too many times to count.”

Pam nodded but that didn’t change her condition.

Doctor O’Reilly came in, checked Pam, and then made ready with a few arrangements of trays of scalpels and other medical things near Pam’s delivery end. He made sure she was comfortable in the stirrups, and gave Dave some ice to feed her when he wasn’t rubbing her back as she leaned slightly to one side.

Pam rolled onto her back, “Oh, fuck. This really hurts.” Tears came to her eyes.

“Push really hard and hold it,” O’Reilly said. He rubbed and pushed down on the baby bump, encouraging ‘Junior’ to exit stage right.

Pam moaned, but nothing happened that time or four times after. The sixth time, however, the baby’s head popped out. O’Reilly moved like lightning, ensuring adequate freedom from the umbilical cord, and then on the next contraction helping to extract the slippery and bloody rubbery baby from the birth canal.

O’Reilly said loudly as the child made a bleating and gurgling sound, “Well, congratulations. You have what appears to be a healthy baby boy. Does this one have a name?”

Dave nodded to Pam.

Pam said as she panted, “His name will be Robert Edwards Prentiss.”

One of the nurses said, “Prentiss. We had one of those in here not too long ago.”