Chapter 89: Reed

One of my favorite authors Ayn Rand once wrote ‘A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others’.

Reed Edwards, the general contractor for the large addition to my home, had all sorts of motivations. First, the top singer in the country and maybe the world, Molliana, was his client and was also acting like a horny teenager in love around him. He was captivated by her and wanted to do anything to please her.

Second, the handsome man had discovered a sexual bacchanal in the form of the Extended Family that was leaving him sated and wishing he had more stamina and recovery powers night after night. Some of that sex was with Molliana, but since his initial initiation into the group, he’d intimately met many of the other women.

Third, Reed had always been motivated to do a top-notch job on the renovations to the house. With the personal attention of Molliana and then the thrills every evening of the sexual encounters with Family members, he was triply motivated to deliver a top-grade project in record time.

Reed was personally arriving at work before any of his workers or subcontractors. Often his commute was from one of the other bedrooms in the house where he left a happy female behind as he started his day. He often was later to join us for dinner as he stayed on the job late, and he worked all weekend, interrupted only by Molliana or one of the women corrupting his efforts on the job, usually with some sexual confrontation in the construction area. There’d already been much sex in the new rooms and passageways, for instance, as Lynn or Karen fucked his lights out in the middle of an afternoon bent over a sawhorse.

The first week that Reed was sexually involved with us he would check with me once or twice a day to be sure he wasn’t overstepping some boundary or house rule about the women and the sex. He loved what was happening, but didn’t want to cause trouble or rupture some relationship he didn’t know about.

Penny came over on a Saturday afternoon when Reed was putting up wallboard in one of the new bedrooms. She brought a doubly-thick yoga mat and sleeping bag, and then fucked Reed for over an hour in the room that would eventually become another guest bedroom. Reed found out that she was married to Martin, and then worried about Martin and their relationship.

I assured Reed that Martin was happy that Penny had been able to get ‘planked’ by the hard-working man, and that he probably got more arousal from hearing his wife describe the encounter than actually having one with her himself. Reed looked surprised that Penny would do a ‘tell all’ with her husband about the lusty fuck session they’d had.

One Thursday night as dinner ended, I again ran through the tenets that seemed to be the underlying foundation of the Extended Family with Reed. My approach was a kind of test by me to see whether we were stretching the man into areas of life that violated his fundamental upbringing and how he preferred to live.

“Do you believe that you can really love more than one person?” I asked initially. I elaborated, “I mean that you have those deep emotional feelings that define love, and you allow all of them, including sexual lust and lovemaking as the result of those feelings.”

Reed was honest, “When I first heard that I thought ‘No’, but in the two weeks that I’ve been around here, I’ve changed my answer. I see it in how you in the Family respond to each other, so ‘Yes’ I do know it’s possible. Can I do it? I’m trying.

“I’m in love with Molliana and Lynn and Karen, and my feelings for other women in the group are coming up to those levels. I’m surprised at that. I thought there was one soul mate for each person, but the one that I thought that about divorced me, so we didn’t share the love the way you all do – the way I feel about some people here.”

I commented, “The term ‘soul mate’ is very limiting. It limits you to one person and you create expectations that that person is going to be ‘everything’ to you. When they’re not, you become disenchanted and also discover disappointment at a level you didn’t expect. In my books, I urge readers to dismiss and forget about the idea of a soul mate and to certainly stop searching for one. Given how complex each of us are, there will rarely be a unique one for any of us.”

“A unique one?” Reed asked.

“I was married to Nancy, my late wife, for over thirty years. During that time and since, I’ve met well over fifty women I could have had a happy married life with, and I’m sure that those women all had similar experiences with various men they met. We had a happy marriage because we made a commitment. The only thing different today, since Nancy passed away, is that I’m committed to about two-dozen women. There’s no secrets or cheating going on. It’s the reality of the situation for all of us. I love more than one person, and more than one person loves me.”

“What else?” Reed asked.

I chuckled. The man was eager to have his brain stretched. I started, “Well, another meme we have is that a ‘valid’ relationship is between a man and woman. There’s been some latitude given recently to gay and lesbian relationships that allow for relationships between two men or two women. Look around our Extended Family. What do you see?”

Reed had certainly met everybody and might still be in the process of slotting them and how they fit within the grand scheme of things. He looked puzzled.

I jumped in to make the point, “Well, you see some happy singles, such as Lincoln and Sven. There are quite a few couples such as Mel and Robbie, or Ken and Paula; but there are also some threesomes such as Stone, Robyn, and Toni, or Martin, Penny, and Allison. There are some larger combinations, too: Amber, Tracy, Caleb, and Warren formed a foursome, but then Sky joined them along with Wendy, Blue, and Bryce.

“All of those relationships, and a few others, also belong to the large whole of the Extended Family. We all love each other and enjoy all the benefits of a loving relationship with each other.

“Now, why couldn’t society start to recognize, legally and governmentally, that is, threesomes, foursomes, and moresomes? Why couldn’t three people get married to each other or four or five? Why have we put limits and said, ‘Oh, no, a relationship can only be two people’. What a crock of shit and a pile of very limited thinking that is.”

Reed nodded, “Feeling as I do about the people around here, I readily agree with that. There are many laws and stuff that I wonder about. We treat them like the gospel but never challenge them. I guess we can do what we want, because, say, five people living together isn’t illegal, but they can’t make it legal.”

I nodded, “There are ways that a good lawyer can provide the same protections and estate management to those five people just as though they were married. It’s a lot more complex, but I’ve done that with some of my Family. My ‘wives’ and my children are all provided for.”

I told Reed about my daughters Jean and Cindy, and how they lived a few miles apart in a loving but virtual foursome, with my four grandchildren. I told him the story about discovering how they were living in a polyamorous relationship on one of their visits to Florida a few years earlier.

Reed said, “Another area there are laws that are too limited is the area of incest. It’s been made completely illegal, and I can see that for underage relationships, but between consenting adults – come on.”

I nodded, “I agree. There are laws against sodomy, too, that still are on the books in many states. That said, many men and women can confirm the joys of anal sex to you, even within the Extended Family. No one should give a damn about which orifice you get your pleasure from or that your partner does. The Florida state legislature can kiss my ass. I laughed.”

Reed teased, “Once you reach the age of consent, of course.”

I teased back, “Oh, yes, the age of consent that varies across states from sixteen to eighteen, and not too long ago it was fourteen in some states. We know that kids in Ohio make much better decisions than kids in, say, Wisconsin or North Carolina. Further, some states have ‘close in age’ exemptions and others don’t. What’s with that.” I laughed. We are such a fucked-up society.”

We were silent for a while, and worked on our dinners. I then challenged Reed again. “What should be the role of a woman within a relationship? What are her jobs?”

Reed looked puzzled. “I’m not sure I understand, but because I don’t feel that roles should be all that fixed or static in a relationship. I’ve got three women on my construction crews and they outwork half the men. One of them is pregnant, too; I’ll hate to lose her but she told me she wants to be home with the baby for at least a year. I have another worker, a man, who works short days because he’s kind of Mr. Mom with his kids. He sees them off to school in the morning, and needs to be there to welcome them home from school in the afternoon. I get him in between.

“Those people violate traditionally defined roles at home and at work, but I don’t care. Of course, I live alone, but I do housework, meals, and such. When I was married, we shared all that. Is that the kind of thing you meant?”

I nodded. “Yes. Role flexibility is alive in the Family. We shift around all the time. Some things we’ve institutionalized to enable our jobs or other things to continue. We get randomly assigned monthly ‘common’ jobs for the Family, such as cooking, cleanup, music, and so on. There’s more, too.”

“Such as?” Reed asked.

“My child with Karen is Logan. He has a nanny that enables Karen and I to work, yet be with him when we want. He’s often at the nanny’s house for sleepovers, and we keep him flexible about what each day and evening will be like.”

Reed nodded, “I’ve seen both of you with a child monitor, and I know some of the rooms with small annexes on them label those rooms ‘nurseries’. I guess more children are planned?”

“True, and that’s just this household, and not the entire Extended Family.”

Reed said, “Can I ask you about Molliana? How’d that happen – I mean her being around here all the time? She’s openly told me that she’s in love with you and wants you to father a child with her.”

I met her a little less than a year ago through Sky Bright. Sky was living with us and loving with us when she was a student at FSU. Then she found the music inside of her. Sky ended up staying with Molliana at her L.A. home and when I went to L.A., I stayed at Molliana’s home, too. To my surprise, we all made love together, and the love has only intensified since then. I’m amazed that Moll had stepped back from her career a little to stay here. She’s gone out of her way to fit in with everybody. The awe and adoration factor we all had for her has morphed more into romantic love from all of us for her. I include myself in that category.”

Reed said, “So, you, too, were blown away to be ... interacting ... with one of the biggest superstars in history?”

“I was, and occasionally I still am. I know that those aren’t the kind of emotions and reactions that Molliana wants from me. She wants inclusion, unconditional love, intimacy, no-strings friendship, and certainly a sense of Family around her. Her own family have become pretty ‘grabby’ and lust more for her money than for her. Around here, no one cares how much money you have. We care about whether you return the same affection to us that we extend to you.”

Reed said, “But she’s reported to be worth hundreds of millions – all self-made.”

I shrugged, “So what? If money is important to her than maybe she’s happy, but I know, and you do, too, that the things I just mentioned are the things that really make her happy.”

We both looked across the patio to the dinner table where Molliana had eaten. She’d moved and was cradled in Carl’s arms. He had both arms around her, one hand palming one of her bare breasts. She was holding his hand there, even encouraging his fondling. He’d occasionally nuzzle into her neck, and although he couldn’t see her face the way she faced, she’d smile in the joy that affectionate act gave her. They and the others at the table were all engaged in some deep discussion.