Chapter 26: A Tiff

Taylor had asked for another pow-wow with the mothers that had talked to her about the Circle. She said there was no rush, so about five-thirty that evening Alice, Kat, Joan, and Nancy made it a point to be there with Taylor at the end of the childcare day. They each had their tots squirming in their lap.

Taylor said, “I thought a lot about what you told me about the Circle. To put my remarks in perspective, I’ve only seen some hugging and kissing going on, and I’ve only met two of the men in the Circle – Dev and Sean. I’ve seen a few of the others, but I don’t know their names or how they fit in.”

“That’s fine. You’ve been doing what you were hired to do, namely to take care of our children,” Joan said sweetly. “Further, we think you’ve been doing a good job at that.”

“Oh, I love this job ... and that’s why I put so much effort into thinking about what you were telling me a few days ago. I mean I REALLY thought about it – like every second of the day and night since then. I projected myself into your environment and thought about what it would be like.” Taylor paused and looked at the mothers as though they would intuit her real reason for meeting. No one did.

“And?” Kat asked.

“I think I’d like to be exposed to more of what you do and your lifestyle. I’m sure I do. I’m asking. I’m just not sure about ... the outcome of it all. I think I might like to ... participate, but I’m unsure.”

Alice shrugged, “All you need to do is hang around with us after work. You can even bring the kiddies who haven’t been retrieved by their parents out to the patio so you can talk to those of us that are around during the day. There are usually up to a dozen Circle members around here during the day. I’m sure you’ve seen the row of baby monitors on the dresser in the nursery.”

Taylor smiled, “Well, I kind of have a problem and I wanted to ask you about it.”

“Sure.”

“I have a boyfriend, but I haven’t said anything to him about any of what you told me. Oh, he knows I’m caring for a dozen babes and that a mom or two comes by each day to help and make sure I get a break, but I didn’t say anything about your lifestyle or the sex or anything that you told me about.”

“What’s he like?” Kat asked.

Taylor did a mock swoon, “Oh, he’s tall, dark, and handsome. He graduated college and he works at Knightsbridge Manufacturing in their engineering department. He is an mechanical engineer, and he designs machinery. He’s very smart. He even got invited to belong to Mensa.”

“What’s his name?” Alice asked, trying to sound casual. She didn’t want to reveal her employer or that others in the Circle worked there just yet. The other women looked at her to see whether she’d say anything and then followed her lead.

Taylor went blithely on, “Alexander Baldwin. Everyone calls him Alec. He’s my age. We went to Sarasota High School together, lost touch through our college years because we went to different universities, and then reconnected at our five-year reunion last fall. It’s kind of funny because in high school we wouldn’t have given each other the time of day, and now we’re kind of an item.”

Nancy teased, “Define ‘kind of an item’ a little further?”

“Well, we’ve been dating a couple of times a week, I think we’re exclusive, and we are really enjoying hooking up with each other. I’m sure we both look forward to the next time we’ll be together. Longer term than that, I’m not sure about anything. He might just be a dalliance for me or vice versa. I’ve had other boyfriends that curled my toes more than he does, so probably this isn’t a full-blown romance.”

Alice thought for a moment and spoke, “Taylor, I want to be blunt about the impact our lifestyle may have on your relationship with Alec if you were to really get into it. Is that all right?”

“Please,” Taylor said with an encouraging smile.

Alice began slowly. “First, if you get into the Circle the way most new people do, then you will be consumed by it and want to be here all the time. I’m basing what I say on the past experiences of people who’ve joined in with us. The people you’ve seen and who you’ll meet will become your closest friends, possibly closer than Alec even dreams of being with you.

“Second, you will cease to be exclusive, and if you bring Alec to our Circle, so will he cease to be exclusive. You may see each other going off to make love with other people – and I chose the words ‘make love’ carefully. We are a loving place. Society would expect you to be jealous and to create real drama in your lives over such a scene. There’s no such drama in the Circle. Instead we would hope that he was going to have a loving, pleasing, and pleasurable experience with his chosen partner and that he would hope the same for you. That reaction is called compersion – it’s the opposite of jealousy. You find joy in seeing your partner happy, even when he – in this case – is with another person and having sex.

“Third, I want to emphasize that the sex in the Circle is frequent, often, regular, and continual. Any one of us will try to have sex multiple times every day with multiple partners. For those of us that are married, yes, we bias our choice of partners to our spouses, but not necessarily every day. Think of the implication of that for you and Alec. You may still only have sex with him twice a week, but the rest of the seven days of the week you may make love with five, ten, or fifteen other men, and he may be doing the same with the other women in the Circle.

“I’ve been blunt on purpose, and I was intentionally trying to shock you so that you realize the full import of asking to participate more in the Circle activities and to involve Alec with you. Alice then looked open for questions.

Taylor had hung on every word. She spoke slowly, “I kind of figured all that out based on what you told me earlier. I guess I should think about this a little further, but off the top of my head I don’t see much of an issue unless Alec finds the whole idea objectionable. I’m still interested.”

Joan said, “I speak from experience. Most men like to be possessive of their women. Oh, they may say they give them freedom, but in reality, they don’t. They put subtle reins on them to keep them in line according to how they want them. They try to be controlling. Of course, women can do the same things. The vocabularies and conversations that emerge are interesting and full of illogical statements and rationales. Personally, I don’t know how to test that situation ahead of time.”

Kat said, “If he came to dinner some night, and then joined everybody after dinner we could see how he reacted to Taylor going off with some other guy, or one of us could try to seduce him and see how he reacts.”

Taylor said, “Isn’t that kind of extreme?”

“Only if you aren’t happy with your seduction and he’s not happy with his,” Alice speculated. They all laughed.

“What if I was only making out with someone?” Taylor asked in a tentative tone.

Kat replied, “Well, that’s the starting position for things. We could tee up some dancing and then do something to separate Taylor and Alec.”

Alice suggested, “Before that happens, I think Taylor should find a couple of men that she’s very comfortable with ahead of time. I’m not trying to make something artificial happen either.” She turned to Taylor, “I think you should genuinely want to be with the other man or men, maybe not in preference to Alec, but as an alternative where there are many options around for both of you.” She laughed at the implications.

Taylor nodded, “I like that idea. If he balks too much, we could just leave, but it would open up an avenue to discuss what had happened and I could feel him out a little more. What we need is an excuse to talk about what was happening and the underpinnings of the Circle.

“More than that, I could see how I feel about the Circle and what you’ve told me about everybody’s behavior. The only thing I can relate it to were some wild parties in college, but I wouldn’t categorize any of you as ‘wild’. You’re all quite sane and logical, plus you’ve all got children and serious jobs.

“Would you like to hear the full indoctrination spiel from one of the guys, maybe my Dave?” Alice offered.

Taylor nodded, “I think I’d like that. I don’t think I’ve met him. I can stay tonight, if Dave has time to talk.”

Alice smiled, “I’ll try to arrange for the two of you to sit next to each other at dinner.”

An hour later, Dave and Taylor sat next to each other at the end of one of the long tables. Taylor was obviously in her ‘best behavior, best manners’ guest mode. She was very personable, and even kind of flirty with him much to the joy of Alice who feared she would be too standoffish with the men in the Circle. She also thought that Taylor might be giving herself a little test to see whether she liked Dave and the attraction she invited. As far as she could tell, they were ‘clicking’.

Dave started talking about the Circle towards the end of dinner after learning a bit about Taylor and her situation with Alec. He talked about some of the underlying tenets of the Circle: optimism, ability to love more than only one other person, the joy of compersion, non-monogamy, bisexuality, open and group sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism, friendship, multiple relationships, spirituality, service to the community, and more.

Alice, Heather, and Cricket sat next to the couple on both sides of the table and often chimed in about the manner in which some principle had impacted their own actions or thinking.

Alice also spoke eloquently about what she’d been like before loosening up, and what that process had been like – leaving a comfort zone that hadn’t fit her very well to find a new life in the open marriage with her husband, sister wives, and intimate friends, both male and female.

Alice emphasized to Taylor, “You are not under any pressure to adopt our way of life – our lifestyle, if you will. We were merely making you informed about how we live so you wouldn’t freak out the first time you saw some open sex or realized that partners that weren’t married were engaging in an intimate relationship with someone else.”

Taylor had asked questions periodically following up on something Dave or one of the wives said. Towards the end, her questions got a little more risqué. “Does it ever bother any of you having sex in the open in front of your friends?”

Cricket laughed, “It did the first few times I did it. I felt on display, but then I realized how I could also watch others making love next to us or even on the same bed. It’s so sexy and arousing. I thought I’d been aroused before, but when you’ve been watching another couple next to you do the same things, and then that man sudden comes and starts to eat you and the man you were making love with goes to that girl and starts to fuck her, you’re libido soars to a whole new solar system. I’ve never been as aroused as I am here in the Circle, and I wasn’t a virgin when I got here. I love this place.”

“So you swap a lot?” Taylor asked with a touch of awe in her voice.

“Yeah. It’s fun, erotic, stimulating, and my God it’s sexy. Without all the guilt that society would normally lay on you, it’s truly refreshing.”

“What was the best sexual time you’ve had?”

“Oh, that would be Dave giving me an A-spot orgasm for the first time. I didn’t know a person could cum that hard and still live. He gave me the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever had, times a million. He’s done it several times to me since when I’ve asked him. I remember every aspect of that first time though.

“Another fun time was when I was doing a film with Mike and I had five men plunder my body: one in my pussy, one in my ass, I was jerking off two more, and was blowing another. That was very unusual and it was all pretend because we were making a porn video, but it was fun and I kept cumming over and over from everything that was going on.” Cricket smiled and did a miniature swoon.

Taylor looked at Dave and back to Cricket. “I have lots more questions. First, what is an A-spot orgasm?”

Alice answered her, describing the location and phenomena as well as how Dave had learned and then carefully put into practice delivering the experience to each woman that he became intimate with.

Taylor nodded and said, “Second, Cricket you said you were doing a film; what did you mean?”

Cricket smirked, “I was doing a porn video for one of the guys in the Circle. He has a small production company and even a studio out on Route 301. I’ve done several now. They’re fun to do, and I love the sex so why not?”

“But ... you put yourself out there ... in public, that is if he posts them.”

“Oh, he posts them on his company website. They’re good sellers and I do make some money, but that’s incidental to the pleasure and fun of doing them.”

Taylor sized up Cricket, “Well, I can see how people would like watching you in a porn video.” She smiled. The others saw there was no pejorative judgment there.

Alice said a little more, even revealing that most of the women in the Circle had done videos, some with disguises of some kind. She didn’t mention her own involvement, but left that as an open question. Taylor was amazed that about fifty women had done videos for Mike, a nice-looking man that Heather pointed out at the other dinner table.

Alice revealed more; “You care for Kat’s son – little Jimmy. She does most of his editing for him as a full-time job, plus she’s been in a couple of dozen of his films. Because of her pint-size, she’s a popular star of his business just like Cricket.”

Taylor and the group talked some more, and by then Dave sized up Taylor as exceptionally horny. The way she fidgeted and rubbed her legs together were giveaways to her condition.

Dale came by that end of the table and Dave grabbed him so he could meet Taylor. Of course, Taylor knew his toddler son Mark and wife Susan, but she’d not met him except when he picked up his son. He sat and talked with her for a few minutes. The only reason he broke away was that Amanda came by, leaned down and kissed him, and then asked whether he’d like to go and make love with her. He did, so off they went.