Chapter 16: Minor Surprises

Dave, Scarlett, and Heather sat with Matt and Rose on the patio on Saturday morning – the two mothers and the stepdad to the teens.

Dave said, “We wanted to be sure you are making an adult decision that has more to it than all your hormones talking.”

The two teens laughed at his comment.

Scarlett said in somewhat serious tone, “I agree. Dave told me about what you both said on Monday night at the Circle 101 class, and I am touched, but at the same time I am worried perhaps because you are both young – or maybe it’s that I’m becoming so old.”

The two teens were paying rapt attention to their parents and were surprisingly not argumentative or intimidated by the meeting. Rose said, “Mom, just so you know, Matt and I have been sexually intimate. We’ve been very responsible and have used all sorts of protection from pregnancy and with a couple of very safe exceptions neither of us has strayed from the other, so there has been no risk of an STD.”

Heather rolled her eyes, “But there’s more to a relationship than just sex. What about all the other factors that you should consider?”

Matt said, “If I had the means, I would buy Rose the biggest engagement ring ever and then marry her this afternoon. I love her with all my heart and I know she loves me. We’ve just been having the longest engagement in the world. If you recall, Rose declared that she was going to marry me right after we met twelve years ago.” He grinned at her, “She reminds me of that fact about once a week.”

Dave acknowledged, “I do recall and dismissed it as a child’s fantasy. Now, you’ve grown to the age to make it real, and I guess nothing has changed. When you meet your soul mate, I guess you know immediately.”

Rose said, “We think alike. We finish each other’s sentences. We would like to live together here in the Circle instead of having to go to our own rooms alone each night. Consider this a formal request for us to live together starting today.”

The adults all sat back, a bit in shock, and looked at each other. This wasn’t the discussion they expected. Dave said, “Where?”

Matt said, “We identified two bedrooms that would work for us. One is my room in our house. My bedroom is kind of small and I only have a twin bed, but that room could become the guest room if Rose and I occupied the other larger guest room with the queen size bed. That would also give us an ensuite bath. The other place is a large guest room in Miss Scarlett’s house, which also has an ensuite. Athena is next door in her own quarters. That also has its own ensuite bath.”

Heather said, “And what will you tell your friends in school?”

Matt spoke, “They don’t need to know the obvious. We are always hanging out together anyway, at least when we’ve been at the same school. We keep the PDAs down low, but everybody assumes we’re sexual. If you’re a couple in any of the upper schools it’s taken for granted that you’re most likely fucking like rabbits every chance you get. A few have been caught on school grounds. A few have gotten pregnant and that’s why we have a Cyesis program at one of the high schools.”

Rose jumped in, “We would never do that to our family. It would disgrace us, and pose a problem for the three of you and probably the Circle. We don’t want that. We are the one couple that has gone together for the longest in any of our schools. People tell us we’re the gold standard. We do feel like role models to the other kids, and we’ve seen them modify their behavior to be more like us – not hanging all over each other, not copping a feel at their lockers, and so on.”

Scarlett said, “But joining the Circle as full-fledged members is a big step. Suddenly, you’re not exclusive with each other. You indicated that you’d had some kind of sex with others. Would you care to share what that was about?”

Matt gestured to Rose.

Rose said, “I really like Toby a lot. I love him, too, but not as deeply as I feel about Matt. Several times we’ve gotten together with Toby and Danica. We swapped I guess you might say and speaking for myself I really enjoyed myself.” She gave a slight smile but didn’t sound embarrassed.

Matt rapidly added, “I think of Danica the same way. I really like her but she’s no replacement in anyway for Rose. I felt our times together have been special and expressive. They told us about being with a few other Circle members and how rewarding they found the experience. I guess that’s one of the reasons we want to belong as full members and not as tag-alongs to you adults.”

Rose said, “Think of it this way, if we weren’t related and you were meeting us for the first time as young adults, and we expressed our interest in the Circle, from what we observe with others, you’d have no qualms about having us become pledges and then members.”

Matt said, “As for living together, again if we weren’t related and just showed up together to ask to rent a room, you’d think seriously of honoring our request.”

Dave kind of ignored their argument and said, “Rose, you are a beauty in every sense of the word. I worry that you’ll become a sex toy for the men, or that they’ll lure you away from Matt in some way.”

Rose smiled, “I know how to say ‘No’. I also talked to Rachel about what her experiences have been since she started with all of you at about the same age. She admitted to really focusing on you, dad, and then having to broaden out her focus. She said she was popular as a teen and even used to tease all the men about how they were fucking teenage pussy. She told me to call them each ‘Daddy’ when I got the opportunity and lay on the teenage pussy thing. She said they’d cum like crazy when she did that.” Rose laughed. Matt chuckled.

Dave rolled his eyes. He could remember being with Rachel after she’d just turned eighteen and loved her teasing him that way. She even did that well into her twenties although everybody knew she was no longer a teenager.

Rose went on, “Rachel said she thought she was the aggressor rather than the men. I think I’ll be the one that has to ask for what I want. I think the men will be too intimidated to ask a teen. This is the CIRCLE. The men already love me and they don’t want me to have a bad experience, so they’ll be cautious and standoffish. I doubt I’ll be overwhelmed in any way. Besides, I want this.”

Heather nodded, “I can understand that, and I think you’re right.” She turned to her son, “And you’re ready to work at making the Circle a success the way the rest of us do.”

“I am,” Matt said with a smile. “Rose and I talked to Tan about service jobs on Wednesday. I’m going on ‘pots and pans’ in the kitchen as part of the cleanup crew alternating three and four days a week with some others from the Circle. Rose went on two teams that are each light duty – one is patio laundry to collect, wash, and fold the pool towels three or four days a week, and the other is Dale’s security team. Tan wanted her to interact more with some of the others in the Circle, in that case Dave, Dale, Dev, Owen, Julie, and Kat.”

Matt went on, “Rose and I both know to keep our mouths shut about how we live or the environment and culture of the Circle. If people ask, and they have, we just refer them to the newspaper articles and brush off the question. So far, that’s worked. When the reality TV show goes on the air, we’ll have fewer questions of one sort, but probably a whole rash of new questions we’ll have to formulate answers to. Since Rose and I talk all the time, we’re good at presenting a united front.”

Heather said, “I got asked a few things when I was at the university, but did what Matt said; I brushed them off as inconsequential or too personal.”

Matt chuckled, “With the TV show, we can always just say ‘Watch the next episode’ or tune in next season.” He laughed.

Scarlett said, “I’m not sure I want you as full members to get involved with Mike Holiday and his Circle-X Productions.”

Rose tittered, “You mean making a porn film like you did, mom?”

Scarlett was taken back. Since she’d been disguised, she thought Rose didn’t know about her two-film porn career.

Rose went on with a smirk, “You should have hidden the DVDs better. I found them behind our regular stash of movies, and Matt and I watched you as we fucked one day. Very hot, mom! Just so you know, I WOULD like to do something like that someday soon. Mike won’t talk to me right now, however. I mentioned my desire to Kat and she set me straight on his requirements. I can’t even LOOK underage.”

Dave said, “And you both read Cricket’s book about the Circle?”

Matt said, “From cover to cover. We got to read some of the chapters as she was writing them, before they were assembled into a book. We understand and fully subscribe to all the tenets of the Circle. Rose and I have talked about every chapter. We wanted to be sure we were together and of the same mind in this when we sought full Circle membership. We also learned a lot about each other and how we each think, even in areas well beyond the book and the Circle.”

Dave looked at the other two adults in the conversation and shrugged. He said, “I think we have a couple of new adults in our midst. The kids do grow up if we continue to feed them.” He chuckled.

Heather rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah. I just never saw this day coming until Matt was in his late thirties and I was thinking about retirement.”

Scarlett leaned over and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “I thought Rose would be virginal until her thirties, too. I’m proud of you, honey. I kind of had this virginal image of you from when you were six or seven years old. I guess that ship sailed a long time ago.”

Rose said, “I’m sure every parent goes through what you’re all feeling right now. I guess we’re having you loosen up your thinking about us sooner rather than later. We don’t mean to rub any of this in your face, but we are officially adults.”

Dave put his hand out to his stepson, “Welcome to the Circle, Pledge.” Matt shook his hand and broke into a grin. Dave repeated the handshake with Rose, except she got up and went to him, gave him a big hug, and kissed him on the lips. Dave blushed. The kiss was far from daughterly. He even felt the flick of her tongue on his lips. She laughed when he recoiled slightly.

Rose said in an insistent tone, “And based on that, can we start to live together as we asked a moment ago?”

Dave looked at Scarlett and Heather and got slight nods from each of them. He said, “Yes, and you’d better never miss a day being on the pill and I think you should start using some second form of birth control just to make the possibility of a child born to teenage parents really remote.”

Scarlett said, “I’ll get you some Plan B pills, too.”

The young adults looked at each other with that tolerant look. They’d won the battle and would settle for losing a few minor skirmishes along the way.

The security team sat in the living room of the core with the security photos from the night before projected on the large sixty-five-inch-high-def television.

“THERE!” Dev said and pointed to the upper left-hand corner of the video screen.

Dale said, “Shit, he’s coming out of a foxhole or something.”

Rose muttered, “Tunnel?”

“Oh, great,” Julie started, “now we have infiltrators tunneling into the Circle.”

Owen said, “Something had to trigger my alarm system last night. We know it was a dark figure – probably the same one as before. He tried to jimmy a window. He must have been watching the patrol guard circle the house. See.” He pointed at the screen and as the guard disappeared around the house, the perp made a run for one of the windows on the south side.

Kat said, “I’m not so sure he was intent on entry. His actions and posture in that part of the video from your side cams on your house only seemed to indicate that he made sure to trip the alarm. He was ready to run before he even pulled that screwdriver from his pocket. As soon as the security lights came on, he was gone in a flash.”

Dev pointed at the screen from another of the cameras on one of the tall perimeter poles, “There he goes back into his foxhole. Let’s go look.”

The committee paused the video they’d already watched a dozen times and went outside. They walked the field where the dark figure had been spotted about six feet apart. Kat was the one that found the hole.

“HERE!” she yelled.

Sure enough, there was a small narrow opening with a carpet of sod roughly placed on top. Dave guessed the person had done that from inside the hole after crawling in.

Rose said eagerly, “Let me get in. I don’t mind getting dirty.” She was in old jeans and a sweatshirt.

Dev stopped her. “Wait a minute, honey. I want you to have breathing apparatus on if you go in there in case the sides cave in. It’d take us a while to dig you out if that happened.”

Kat said, “Sean has scuba tanks. I’ll get one. I’ll bring a flashlight, too.” She ran off.

The others probed down the hole and explored what they could see. The hole was about four feet deep and then sharply angled off towards the backyard of the first house on Christian Grey Drive just outside the Circle gates – a house that was usually unoccupied.

Dev said, “I want to explore the other end of this if I can find it. You get Rose started but don’t let her get out of earshot with you. Make sure she has a safety rope attached and you know how far out the rope has gone.” He strode off towards the gate.

Kat came back in a golf cart with a small scuba tank and facemask, rope, and two flashlights. Rose donned the tank and got instructed by Kat about how to breathe using the device. She caught on quickly. After a few more instructions, a rope was tied around Rose’s waist and down the rabbit hole she went. In the small chamber at the bottom of the hole she turned and started to crawl along with her bright flashlight ahead of her. After about a dozen feet she backed up and got lifted out of the hole by Dale and Dave.

Rose took off the facemask and said, “As far as I can see the tunnel is the same size all the way along, just about wide enough for me and the tank. It’s pretty straight, too, right towards that house with the greenish roof. I can see the scuffmarks where somebody crawled along. There are a few boards here and there to support the roof of the tunnel. It goes straight in that direction as far as I can see with the light.” She pointed towards the outside backyard next door.