Chapter 21: Acolytes

Alice, Joan, and Pam sat in the living room of the core nursing Johnny, Lauren, and Robbie, respectively. They’d been chatting when Dave came in and sat with them.

Dave asked, “Everything all right? Need me to get you anything?”

Alice responded, “We’re fine. Thank you for asking. You’ve been very solicitous for the past week.”

Dave nodded, “I feel I should be spending more time with the three of you, and also Julie and Heather.”

“What brought this on?”

Dave thought a moment and chuckled, “Guilt, I guess.”

Joan laughed, “The gift that keeps on giving. Guilt about what?”

“Well, you’ve both had to do without sex for a while and will for another few weeks. You’re now burdened with breastfeeding and baby things, and I’m expecting that you’ll both miss the intellectual challenges that your jobs gave you at some point. We kind of turned everything upside down, and I thought I should spend more time with you.”

Alice said, “Thank you for your consideration, but you don’t have to go whole hog over and give up the rest of the Circle.”

“Oh, I’ll see them on Friday and Saturday nights, and Sundays.”

“But you didn’t go out and do any of that stuff last weekend?” Pam said. “You stayed home with us. I thought that was strange. Nice, but strange.”

Dave countered, “The children will need more of my time, too.”

Alice and Pam both laughed. Alice said, “Not right now, Doofus! They’ll need you when their little brains develop and they each have a consciousness, but for now they’re pretty much little vegetables that we pour mommy milk and formula into, and you know what comes out the other end. That’ll last about nine months to a year, and THEN you can take over.”

Pam added in a teasing tone, “No. No. He can be responsible for cleaning up the other end when all that processed stuff gets expelled.”

Alice said, “Seriously, you have no reason to feel guilty. Pam and I know what we signed up for. The amount of help you’ve been giving is fine. We’re glad you’re connecting with everybody else.”

“I just worry about robbing you of time and maintaining the intimacy that we’ve all built together.”

The three women looked at one another.

Alice said, “If you start to change this, you will worry each of us a great deal. You’re an opinion leader, and others may see or even misinterpret what you’re doing. The whole nature of the Circle could change.”

Dave said, “Well, with all the children, maybe it should.”

A chorus of “No’s” erupted from the three women.

Joan said, “Don’t upset things. We like knowing that the rest of the Circle is motoring on while we are ... incapacitated slightly. In a couple of months we’ll be able to participate fully again when the kiddies are asleep or in someone else’s care. If you change things, there won’t be anything for us to look forward to.”

“But I could certainly be home without everybody else getting upset or seeing things the wrong way.”

Alice said, “I’m not sure about that. What if you made all the other fathers feel guilty and like they should be spending more time with their wives or the woman they got pregnant. People would withdraw. Dinners would cease to have complete attendance. We couldn’t sustain Bobbie and Maddy because the demand wouldn’t be there. The children wouldn’t get a chance to socialize as much. The sex would seriously diminish, maybe even below some critical threshold where it would never happen as a group event again. I’m begging you, DON’T SCREW THIS UP.”

“OK. OK. OK,” Dave said holding his hands up. “What would you like me to do?”

In about twenty minutes we’ll all go off for cocktails and then dinner. Some of the kids will be asleep, others will get tucked into the nursery in the core. Maddy will do her magic, joining us when they’re all asleep. Dinner will occur, and then most of the mothers, those not on the circuit yet, will collect their kids and retire for the night. Those able to will join the other women in hopes of one or two sexual liaisons during the evening.

“Your job, in all that, is to provide loving experiences to some of the other women, along with the other men. You are not shortchanging us in any way. You are our family’s representative to the Circle, and the loving and caring we want to express to each other. Go forth and do that to at least several women tonight ... and tomorrow ... and the nights after that.”

Dave nodded, “All right, but if you ever are feeling...”

The three women interrupted him in unison, “We’re NOT.”

As the small plane’s engine came to a stop and quiet filled the cockpit, Dave pulled his headset off as did the man beside him in the right seat.

“Congratulations, Mr. Prentiss. You passed your examination. I should add your maneuvers were some of the tightest and most accurate I’ve found in student pilots applying for a private license. Your instructors schooled you well.”

“Thank you, Sir; I’ll tell them,” Dave replied.

After some forms and paper work, the examiner left. Dave walked into the Sky Ranch office. There were a dozen people there from the Circle, and everyone cheered and patted him on the back. He was already glowing, but the impromptu celebration made things even more special.

Alice kissed her husband. “Welcome to pilothood. Now you need to get your instrument rating. Never stop learning and getting better at this stuff. Every little thing you do will make you a safer pilot.”

Dave nodded, “This is a great deal of fun. I have the bug, so yes, I will.”

Joan kissed him, and then so did Pam.

Doug got the whole group together and took some photographs to remember the occasion for Dave. Dave had his shirt tail cut off. Pete rolled out a cart with a small sheet cake on it with Congratulations iced on the top with a small plastic biplane next to it that had been nosed into a small pile of the cake’s icing to make it look like a crash occurred.

As everyone had a piece of the cake Dave asked, “Who’s next?”

Alice volunteered, “Joan is about ready for the private test, and so is Emily. Owen is getting ready for his instrument rating flight test. I’m about ready for my commercial test and so is Pam. Donna just soloed, so she’ll be a while. Abby is just getting started. Oh, yes, Rachel; she’s ready for her flight exam, too.”

Dave laughed, “Does the flying club have enough planes?”

“We need to count seats and then see whether we want to make a mass migration to some place.”

After the cake had been demolished and the group started to disperse, Alice turned to her husband, “So, Mr. Pilot-In-Command, want to take me for a ride around the pumpkin patch?”

Doug said, “Fly the 152 back to Circle Airport after it’s gassed up. I’ll hitch a ride with Pete. He’s got to teach ground school to some folks at four-thirty for an hour. Besides, I haven’t driven in a car for almost ten days, and I kind of forget the route, and what those pedals on the floor do, and which side of the road to drive on – you know, things like that.”

Dave said, “Let me go and gas up the plane and then we’ll meander home.”

Twenty minutes later, Dave flew Alice out of Sky Ranch where he’d gone to take his exam, and only a few minutes later they flew the pattern and landed at Circle Airport. Dave taxied in and after shutting down the plane, parked it in the hangar next to Owen’s mammoth corporate jet, and shut the door.

By the time they got up to the house, Pam and a couple of others who’d driven to Sky Ranch also returned. Everyone congregated out on the patio for a few minutes, and Dave received congratulations from a few who hadn’t gone down to Sky Ranch to watch the end of his examination – a short-field landing.

Friday, Dave got home from his early afternoon flying lesson, he found Gail and Elise sitting at the patio bar waiting for him, although they’d both served themselves a glass of white wine from the open bar. They both broke into broad smiles when he appeared and rose to greet him with kisses and hugs.

He was surprised with Gail’s warmth at first, but then recalled their joining on her last visit over a month previous. Gail had the right attitude about the Circle, Dave, and love. He’d also cut her some slack because of the various shocks to her caused by the thirty years of secrecy about her lineage.

Elise said, “I asked Gail to come down so she could integrate into the Circle more than she did the last time. I gave her some challenges similar to what you and Alice went through, and she’s been working on them back in Ohio.”

“Like what?” Dave asked, as he smiled at Gail.

Gail grinned, “Like dressing in a more provocative manner, flashing my boobs or pussy at men, watching porn, and reading sexy stories. That’s what I’ve tried to work on over the past month.”

“And how did you do?” he asked in a lecherous tone.

“Better on some categories than others, as you might expect. I work in an office filled with little cubicles doing software development. I’m a whiz at it. I’m also known as a nerd, and certainly the guys I work with are nerds. As it turns out they’re pretty easy to tease and play innocent with.

“I dispensed with my bras, and found that with AC temperature set at or below 75 I can maintain pointy nips all-day long. I also found which blouses I have that will allow just a hint of things to show through better than others. A few will allow others to see my areolas, too, and not just the pointy tips. A few days I’ve been able to sit in a provocative position showing my nether region to whoever walks by. So far, only one guy got a really good beaver shot.”

“Beaver shot?” Dave exclaimed. “I haven’t heard that terminology since high school.”

Gail laughed, “Your mother told me that’s what it was.”

Dave flashed Elise a sly look. She just shrugged. “I guess I need to update my vocabulary.”

“And your porn preferences?” he asked Gail.

“I’m still developing them. I think a lot of the stuff is too rough and not romantic enough to appeal to me. I like the F-F-M and M-M-F films, but then they get into really kinky rough stuff, anal, and they lose me. I found some female friendly films, and I liked those, but often they were overloaded with lesbian scenes. I have a lot to learn on that front but I’m more than willing on that front.”

“And your story preferences?”

“I’ve been on storiesonline.net and hotsexstories.com, and liked those best of all because they were easiest to navigate. I’ve just gotten started so I don’t have preferences. Some I’m not even interested in like erotic horror. I really like an author named Wolf on storiesonline; he also has written under the name romantic1, tlcgiver, and stevewallace on hotsexstories.”

Dave looked at his watch. It was just two o’clock in the afternoon. He pointed over at Mike’s house. “Gail, I’d like you to go over to that house. It belongs to Mike Holiday. He has a large office on the first floor and you’ll find Kat working in there editing some films. I’d like you to look over her shoulder and get her to talk to you about what she’s looking for in the scenes she’d editing, why she picks what she does, and why she eliminates what she does. Spend an hour or so with her then you can leave and come back if you want.” He smiled at her.

Gail naively accepted her assignment and headed off. Elise had added her encouragement to what her son had suggested. “Good idea. Spend the rest of the day. If Mike is there, you might get him to show you a few things, too,” Elise teased.

Gail walked across the patio. Dave and Elise watched her depart. She wore jeweled flip-flops, shorts, and a relatively thin top that did indeed display her breasts to some degree as well as a lot of cleavage.

Elise said, “She’s hot. I like her. She’ll fit in well here. When she’s a little more adapted to the Circle and sapphic sex I am planning on eating her to a thousand orgasms.”