Chapter 24: Interested Threesome

At the January members meeting of the Circle, nearly everybody was there and they inducted Gail, Amanda, Jason, and Robyn into the Circle. Those new members brought the official count up to thirty women and seventeen men. At that point there were ten children, including Matthew who celebrated his seventh birthday in February.

Matthew had a birthday party with the help of his parents – all ‘five’ of them in the Prentiss household, and Bobbie Wyatt, the Circle’s chef. Bobbie did a great cake shaped like an oval racetrack with toy cars all over it. Whenever a slice was cut, that person got a little toy car on top. Matthew had ten other first graders come to the party – seven boys and three girls.

Dave watched Matthew with his friends, and saw how empathetic he was, and how solicitous of the three girls he was. He was genuinely everybody’s friend and they responded well to his efforts. As people were leaving Matthew firmly shook each of his friend’s hands, and kissed each girl goodbye on her cheek. While they tee heed about the kisses, he could tell they liked the attention despite the young age.

To minimize questions about his lineage, Heather had Dave adopt Matthew and give him the Prentiss name. Matthew thought the whole idea was great and thoroughly enjoyed the small ceremony the family held on the occasion of his adoption and the official name change. He called it a special birthday party only without having anything to do with his birth. His full name became Matthew Manning Prentiss, the ‘Manning’ part being Heather’s maiden name.

Matthew was obviously the forerunner for how the children would be raised in the Circle. While he had a dad – Dave, and mom – Heather, he also had mom2, mom3, and mom4, as he called them, specifically, Alice, Pam, and Julie. The other women in the Circle he dubbed his aunts, and he had a lot of them. The other men were his uncles. He had a HUGE family, he’d say, as he spread his arms as far apart as he could.

When Dave and Heather registered him at the local school, Heather listed everyone in the Circle as eligible to pick him up from school or to be used as a backup in case medical decisions needed to be made. The administrative woman registering the lad was amazed at the size of the family, but Matthew told her he was one very special kid because of all that.

At his instigation, Matthew decided he wanted to have occasional sleepovers at the homes of his uncles and aunts. He’d arrange a date with them, and then enjoy their guest room. According to reports back to his mom and dad, he was an ideal guest. Matthew knew that the other men and women slept over at their neighbor’s homes, and he wanted to be in the circle of those doing the same things. Of course, he didn’t quite have the whole picture.

Being raised in an unconventional environment, everyone was sensitive not only to reports from the school about his performance, but also whether he was saying or doing anything that was inappropriate or too revealing about the Circle activities. Fortunately, all the reports were that he was a stellar student and highly social, going out of his way to help classmates when he saw or knew they were having problems of some kind.

The weather in January and February in Sarasota turned out to be relatively cool that year. There was plenty of sun, but just low temperatures, including some nighttime temps near freezing. Thus, when March arrived and brought with it some days with temperatures near eighty degrees (twenty-seven Celsius), there was almost cheering and partying, and the reappearance of bikinis, monokinis, and lots of skin outside during the day.

As nice as the weather turned in Florida, it deteriorated in the rest of the country. A series of major snow storms swept across the country one right after the other, piling up snow in some locations to over six feet in depth, where the most they’d seen previously had been maybe two feet. Moreover, at some of the east coast beach areas serious flooding and erosion took place.

Dave and Nancy watched the storms with interest, not only because they’d pass by their old hometowns, but also because of the new weather patterns being established. Nancy even made a special trip up to Atlanta to visit one of the NOAA centers responsible for the summer forecasts relating to tropical storms and hurricanes. The conclusions they shared with her were that there would be slightly more than normal tropical storms, and they would be more severe than in previous years. She got some specific data about the Florida peninsula and expected storm tracks.

Dave’s work at the utility continued routinely. He had occasional trips both around the state looking at the utility’s facilities, and out of state to see how others were handling various energy distribution situations.

The storm task force that the president of the utility had founded frustrated Dave because they were moving so slowly on any of the recommendations put forth, mostly by Dave. He decided just to do what he could in the areas he was responsible for, and to hope for the best with the rest.

Dave again maxed out his power line renovation budget, and talked the utility into slightly more. Of course, he had to hold some in reserve to reimburse out of state line crews should they need to come to Florida in storm season and help put the state back in business.

Dave and Nancy made a quick three-day trip to Puerto Rico to understand better how the island had been so decimated by hurricanes Irma and Maria. The two came back with many pages of notes. Dave shared his findings with the company’s hurricane task force, but unfortunately, he saw few changes resulting.

On the home front, Karen Waldorf Simon returned for a four-day visit in March, again spending a lot of time with Alice and Julie. This time she also made sure she went home with about a hundred photos of everyone in the Prentiss family with their babies and with herself.

Karen told the girls, “I want mom to just have to give in and visit you. She’s got to make up with you. Dad won’t ever budge unless you change your lifestyle, and I’m not recommending that. You have a lifestyle that you’re happy and comfortable in, dozens of friends, and a healthy and happy family. I have nothing to recommend to you on that front. I’m even envious.”

Alice said to her older sister, “I would have predicted hellfire and brimstone from you. The party line from the Bible Church if you step out of line.”

Karen shook her head. “I go to that church to make mom and dad happy. Yes, I get some enjoyment from it, but it wears thin on me as a full-time commitment the way mom and dad have made it. I’m also a little worried about brainwashing my kids through that Sunday School. So many of the messages are based on fear, and even I don’t see the world that way. I read widely about religion and spirituality, and I certainly have reached a point where I’m trying to not judge others. Our talks at Thanksgiving were somewhat of an inspiration on that front.”

“Thank you,” Julie said.

Karen smiled, “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten a lot of pushback from people around here. Florida is considered a Bible Belt state by most northerners.”

Alice said, “We try to keep a low profile. Dave and Derek are often in touch with the local government entities and would hear if there was any scuttlebutt about the Circle, and Erin is still a reporter for the Herald and has some influence in the articles about local celebs and such. She’s done marvelously well at keeping Owen Bennett out of the news, as well as the Circle as anything other than a housing novelty and even the news on that has died away.”

Karen and her sisters talked for another few hours before Karen turned in. She had taken to using the second guest room at the Prentiss’ home since it also had an en suite bath. Ken and Patti were using the other, larger guest room as their home when they were in town.

After Karen had turned in, Julie snuck over to be with Roy for the rest of the evening. Alice went over to join Mike and Clarisse for a little sexual relaxation. Dave had already lined up Amanda and Joan for the evening. When he got to Joan’s townhouse with Amanda, she also had Maddy visiting. Joan’s baby, Lauren Jade, was in a portable bassinette and asleep.

The impromptu foursome made love for almost two hours, and then fell asleep together in Joan’s large bed. Dave spooned behind the mother of one of his children, and had Amanda snuggled in behind him and sandwiched in by Maddy.

As Dave came into the kitchen of his home the next morning, he found Karen sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper that she’d recovered from the front porch. He bid her a happy morning.

“Are you just getting home?” Karen asked, somewhat in disbelief.

“Yes. Your sisters went off, so I went and visited some friends over in the townhouse building. Pam and Heather took care of the babies.”

“They went off and had sex?” Karen asked, but stated it more like a question.

Dave gave her strange look. “If you are asking out of moral judgment, the answer would be that our visits are a private matter. If you asked out of curiosity, the answer is that ‘no, we made love’. And if you are attempting to learn more about the Circle, a more complete answer is that I was the lone male with three women, and we were all feeling loved, content, and spiritually alive when the evening ended and we slept well in each other’s arms.”

Alice came in the back door just then. “Hi. Good morning.” She was cheery.

Dave kissed Alice and they hugged. He prompted her, “Explain to your sister where you were.”

Alice smiled at Karen. “I will, because you kind of know how we live. I stayed over with Mike and Clarisse. We made love, and it was wonderful. I hadn’t been able to share my love with either of them for a few weeks just due to circumstances and holiday schedules, so this was a treat for each of us.”

Karen said, “Aren’t they engaged?”

Alice nodded, “Yes. I think now that Mike’s photography business has gotten some deep roots and with Clarisse graduating in May that they’ll do something later this year.”

Julie came in the door and sized up the situation. “Good morning, everybody.” She moved to the coffee urn and poured herself a cup of coffee. Julie didn’t function without coffee.

Dave teased, “And, you were where?”

“I decided to sleep with Roy. He seemed lonely at dinner, so I wanted to make sure he had some company and knew that he was loved.”

Karen blushed, “But, you...”

“Oh, sis, don’t worry. Yes, he’s older, but I’m young and I’m the slutty one in the family anyway. If you want to know, I fucked his brains out. It was just what he needed.”

Dave laughed, “We’re ALL the slutty ones in the family.”

Karen shook her head, but was laughing.

Ground broke on March fifteenth for a second building of eight townhouses. The project had been dubbed Townhouse 2 by the board to keep the reference clear from the completed and fully occupied Townhouse 1.

Townhouse 1 had proven a huge success. The owners were Joan, Christie, Bobbie and Maddy (who’d taken over Ken’s unit), Donna, Nancy, Holly, Erin, and separately the rest of the Stecklers – Paul, Megan, and Ashley.

The same contractors were going to be used for Townhouse 2. The building would be further towards the airport along the road from Circle Drive to the airport, so the building would be a little further away from the core.

The contractor immediately widened the narrow roadway barely able to handle a car or golf cart to a regular street width capable of handling parallel parking on one side just the way Circle Drive did.

Gail committed to buying a unit immediately. She planned to move from Ohio. She’d been employed as a computer systems analyst, so had skills that were transferrable across locations. Even better, her Ohio employer opted to keep her as a remote employee. At one of the cocktail hours, Gail explained to Dave that the simplistic and old job title hid a wealth of experience she had in forensic computer work, including what she called ‘white hat’ hacking. Dave made sure that Dale and Gail connected on the security aspect of her skill base.

Amanda also put money down on one of the townhouse units. While she rented an apartment in another part of town, she didn’t want to commute to be with her new friends – her intentional family.

Amanda and Dale had connected on many levels, one of them sexual and another vocational. When they weren’t making friendly overtures to each other in a highly physical way, Amanda peppered Dale with questions about his burgeoning private investigation and security business to the point where he finally agreed to give her a try at some of the routine work that he’d been doing for clients.