Chapter 131: Ava's Loose Threads

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 (Continued)

The meeting at the Anderson's had gone very much as expected, in that my two families would do the decent thing and give Ava buckets of support. Everything about it was pretty obvious, so I won't bother describing it further.

Most of what follows are threads left dangling when Ava & Co. went to meet my parents. I'll present the threads a little out of chronological sequence, following threads rather than chronology, for the sake of clarity.

^

When Ava and Julia returned and we had started our sex session, Julia said it was fine for me not to use a condom with Ava. I was supremely uninterested in having another medical discussion, and - at that exact moment - had FAR more interesting things to do, so I said nothing beyond "Yippee." And then another "YIPPEE" when I realized that it meant as many cums as I wanted, without having to worry about the expense of rubbers.

In our post-sex talk, Julia and Ava gave me more details for their no-rubber permission, not that I cared much about the logic behind their decision. Ava was certain to be STD free - I didn't ask whether she was worried about magpies - because Ava's mom had been making Ava get STD checks periodically, and had insisted on a complete medical checkup soon after she [Ava's mom] was diagnosed with cancer. Ava hadn't had sex since.

During the conversation, Julia said to Ava, "Thank goodness you're adopted." This surprised me, and I was even more surprised when Ava agreed. Julia explained to me that having two parents and sole uncle die of cancer in their 50s would have had scary implications for their biological children, if they'd had any.

^

Ava told me, "You don't have to worry about me wanting to have other guys at the same time, Mark. Julia explained the three reasons."

#4: <There are THREE reasons! I can only think of one, and it's: "yeech!">

#1: <How about: yeech; very yeech; and very, very yeech?>

Ava had a strange look on her face, so I looked at Julia. Julia had no trouble keeping a straight face. In fact, she looked quite innocent. Uh oh. I knew what was required of me, so I asked, "What are the three reasons, sweetie?" I was asking Ava. I suspect Julia put her up to whatever this was, so Julia was temporarily off my "Sweetie" list.

Ava's face got even more strained, and she said, "It's complicated so I might mess it up, but I'll try. Number one: you want all the girls to know that you're the boss, and if you're the only guy that's much easier."

I was impressed. That was a good reason not to have any more guys. It was a completely unnecessary reason - because there weren't going to be any more guys anyway - but it was still a good one.

"Number two: guys get into all sorts of competitiveness, like boasting, fighting and stupid stuff like that. What did you call them, Julia?"

"Status games."

"Yeah, thanks. 'Boasting, fighting and status games.' She said it would mess up the loving, open ... Um, what's that word, Julia?"

Julia supplied, "Culture."

" ... culture that you want." Looking at Julia, Ava asked, "Isn't culture what foreigners have?"

Julia said, "It means how people behave together, so every group of people have a culture, even Americans. Just think of it as 'the atmosphere between people.' Mark wants our house to have a loving, open atmosphere between all of us."

Ava looked back at me, "Yes. Just like that. Lots of loving and open. Especially open legs, haha. You don't want any macho games messing that up, do you?"

"No, I truly don't. Both of those reasons are good reasons." I wondered what the third was going to be. It had to be good, with this set up.

"Yeah. Julia's very smart. The last reason is that girls are naturally givers and boys are naturally takers. So it's easier to find giving, loving girls than boys. There are some boys like that, but they're too hard to find. Julia said that if there was another boy now, he might prefer some of us girls the most, then not want to share them with you. Have I explained that properly, Julia?"

Julia said, "You've explained it perfectly, sweetie." Ava looked relieved.

I thought the last reason overlapped with number two ("macho status games") a lot, and I wasn't too thrilled with the "guys are takers, girls givers" assumption either.

Julia, perhaps seeing my expression, saw the need to explain, "As a general rule, guys approach life competitively. That's how they get ahead in their lives. Females are more cooperative. We don't try to 'get ahead' because we've evolved to be the nurturers, which cannot be a competitive activity. Those are very general statements, of course. There are many exceptions either way."

"Oh yeah," said Ava, "I forgot that bit."

#3: <Where was the punch line? Those were all pretty good reasons. Not exactly complimentary to our much-maligned gender, but pretty good nonetheless.>

#1: <But why did Ava look so suspicious at the beginning, and Julia so innocent?>

#4: <Maybe Julia fooled us by truly being innocent. We never expected that! And maybe Ava's expression was the result of her trying to get it all straight.>

Ava said, "I'm looking forward to when there are more guys. That'll be neat!"

"Huh?"

Ava answered, "Huh?"

When we'd untangled that confusion (Ava had been surprised by my being surprised, because surely I knew what was going on), Ava explained, "Julia said there'd be more guys in the future, but probably not for several years. So I have to give up asking you about them and just get used to you being the only one for a long time. That's okay. I don't mind you being the only guy; I think you're WONDERFUL!"

My happiness at being considered "WONDERFUL" was somewhat diminished by what Ava had said Julia had said. I looked at Julia inquiringly. Or perhaps that should be, "in shocked dismay." Probably some of both, although definitely more of one than the other.

Julia answered my dismayingly shocked inquiry with, "You don't know enough mature guys yet, but you'll meet them as you get older. There's no reason you can't get on with guys as well as you do with girls, and you'll certainly need to deal with them in your adult life. All girls know that male squeamishness at male intimacy is just more of that silly macho stuff that Ava mentioned. There is, after all, no LOGICAL reason against two men being very good friends, is there?"

#4: <There may not be a purely "logical" reason, but there were plenty of others. For example, "YEECH!">

Julia, seeing the look on my face, "Remember you're the undisputed boss, darling. Nothing like that will happen until you want it to. I'm just making a prediction about the future. Do you know what your life is going to be like when you are twenty, or forty, or sixty?"

I knew what next year was going to be mostly like: an awful lot of probably too hard college study, but after that I had ABSOLUTELY no idea. According to Prof I might even be in another country, but God knows which one. What my life would be like when I'm twenty, forty and sixty were complete unknowns. [[My life turned out to be utterly different than every guess I could've made!]]

Julia finished with, "It'll ONLY happen, if YOU want it to, so you don't have anything to worry about."

#1: <That's true. And logically there's no... >

#4: <SHUT UP! Or, alternatively, YEECH! Logic is well and good, but it has its place, which is NOT up our asshole!>

#1: <Shall we drop it?>

#4: <For at least sixty years!>

^

After that Julia said, "Mark, have you ordered Ava to follow Carol and my orders yet?"

I hadn't, but that was quickly fixed, "Ava. I order you to follow Carol's and Julia's orders as if they were my orders, okay?"

"Not so fast," said Julia. "Ava, Mark's orders are the most important, then Carol's, then mine. That means if I order you to do one thing, and Mark orders you to do something else, then you do what Mark says, okay?"

"Okay. Mark's the number one boss, then you and then Carol."

"No, Carol then me. Carol is more important to Mark than me."

"Really? More important to Mark?"

"Yes."

"Wow." After a short pause Ava looked at me, and said, "What a pity you can't sleep with her."

I didn't want to lie if I didn't need to, so I said, "Not really. I've been told she snores a lot."

After we'd finished joking around with that, Julia added, "I think Ava understands, so try giving the order again Mark."

I carefully worded my order, "Ava, I order you to obey Carol's orders as secondary to mine, then Julia's orders as tertiary to mine. Okay?"

"Okay. But what does 'tertiary' mean?"

Julia answered, "It means 'third'. Mark's orders are first, Carol's second, mine third."

"Thanks, okay. I got that. I still can't believe Carol's more important than you, Julia. You're AMAZING! Carol's even better?"

Julia answered, "It's not a matter of 'better'. It's that Carol is more important to Mark. He needs her in his life more than he needs me."

Ava asked, "You don't mind?"

"Why would I mind that Mark has someone in his life that brings him so much love and joy? I want him to be happy, and no one makes him happier than Carol."

"Wow, that's beautiful! I'm going to make sure I spend a LOT more time with Carol!"

"Good decision. Let me tell you a few things about orders. We won't be giving you orders often, so chances are you won't have the problem of two of us giving you orders at the same time. If we do accidentally do that, tell us, and let us decide which order is the most important to do first, okay?"

"Okay. That's easy. What sort of orders are you going to give me though? I've been wondering about that."

"They might be simple orders, like getting me a glass of water, or they might be more interesting ones like ordering you to help me do something useful for Mark, like helping me with Donna's Ducklings. They might even be very, very important orders. If four men with guns broke into the house now, I might order you to help me attack them, to give Mark time to get away."

"But they could SHOOT us!"

"While they'd be busy shooting us, they'd not be shooting Mark, so he might have time to get away."

#4: <Or - FAR more likely - have time to destroy all their eyeballs! Immediately followed by destroying everything else about them. Borrowing one of their guns would be an excellent first step. Or, better still, getting a knife. Or a hammer, that would be good too. In fact a knife and a hammer would be just about perfect.>

"Wow. You'd do that?"

Julia stressed, "WE would do that. Without hesitation."

"Wow. You must REALLY love Mark. Ahh, but aren't guys supposed to save girls?"

"Who do you think is more important, you or Mark?"

"Mark, of course."

"There's your answer. I would sacrifice my life to save Mark's without hesitation. So would Carol. But we'd be extremely angry with him if he did the same for either of us. We expect you to treat Mark the same way."

"Wow. You guys are scary! I know you're just scaring me, like your mom did, but it's still very scary."

"When did Mom scare you?"

"With making me have sex with the soccer team. I would MUCH rather have sex with the soccer team than attack men with guns, that's for sure!"

"Unfortunately, men with guns is more likely than sex with the soccer team. Mark is very, very incredible, and incredible people can make other people jealous or angry, so he could be attacked. That's why I'm telling you now. One of your jobs - a VERY important job - is to keep Mark safe. If you hear some jocks planning to ambush Mark and beat him up, warn him. If men with guns break into the house, do whatever you can to protect Mark, including immediately following any orders you're given. You can imagine how important those orders could be!"

"You're not just scaring me? That could happen?"

"It COULD happen, yes, but we don't think it WILL. If we thought that, we wouldn't have let you join us and we'd be running away and hiding somewhere safe. But it COULD happen."

Ava asked, unbelievingly, "And you STILL want to be his girlfriend?"

"Absolutely. I love him and he's very important. Besides, I'd want to be there to do everything I could to protect him. Don't worry about it, Ava. It's true that it could happen, but it won't even be a risk for years yet. I just want you to realize how important following orders could be."

"Super-important!"

"Yes. Even super-super-important."

"{Giggle}. I don't think my parents would want me to have a dangerous boyfriend though."

"You don't even have to start worrying about it for years yet, Ava. By then you could be married and have your own family, and not be close to Mark and me at all."

"Oh no! I always want to be close to you. Just not close to bad men with guns!"

#1: <The sad thing about this conversation is that it's a real fear. Can you imagine how insane the lunatics could get over our halo effect?>

#4: <Here's an idea: let's not show it to any lunatics! Or any religious fanatics, if that's not wholly contained in the first set.>

#1: <We're obviously talking about Christian "religious fanatics", because of the halo thing, right? Not the Arab fanatics we hear about so often.>

#4: <Yeah, obviously. But if in doubt, let's avoid all fanatics, regardless of color, creed or religion. There are more than enough fanatics in our country to keep us busy avoiding them, without our having to worry about those in other countries.>

#3: <One good way to make sure no fanatics know about our halo effect is to make sure NO ONE knows about it. No one at all. If we never show it, no one can ever see it. It's a total fake anyway, so why bother.>

#4: <Not even to Mom and Dad? Like we were intending for tomorrow - Oops! That might get bumped by the dinner party with Ava's parents.>

#3: <The talk to cheer Mom up can easily be done some other time. And, yes, not show our halo effect to Mom, Dad, or anyone else EVER! If we need to demonstrate light blobs, let's just do random, pretty balls. Why show Mom and Dad the halo anyway? They know we're not an angel. If anyone knows that, it's Mom and Dad! It's not worth the risk of someone peeking in the window and seeing our halo. That might start the whole religious fanatic, witch-hunt thing going again. I don't want to be burned at the stake.> (Corvallis is just south of Salem, Oregon. The Salem Witch Trials occurred in Salem, Massachusetts - a different place entirely - but the name similarity makes the witch trials something we're slightly more aware of. It's a tiny corner of our culture, proving that it isn't just for foreigners.)

#4: <Anyone peeking in and seeing random, pretty balls floating around is still going to be freaked by it.>

#3: <Freaked by something that COULD have a logical explanation, like some sort of fancy party lighting system that they couldn't see, is a LOT different than "religious fanatic freaked". I'll take an ordinary freak over a religious one every time! Ordinary freaks come in singles, religious freaks "spread the word" to all their fellow lunatics first, and then come in hordes. We can deal with one lunatic, we can't deal with a horde of them.>

#1: <Very good point. Changing the subject a little then, I thought we were intending to show Mom and Dad the halo effect not because they'd believe we were an angel, but to show them how important other people could think we are. Random pretty balls won't be as effective.>

#4: <So maybe we create the halo effect, just not over our head. Make it anywhere else in the room, and then quietly tell Mom and Dad, "Imagine what would happen if I walked into the Vatican with that going on just above my head." Mom and Dad would get it. I think we should be able to talk up the importance of Carol and me being together, and for what it's worth, having a fairly free hand with Donna. More than "hand", if we go down that path, haha. Carol and I want to be together, and it's good that we're together, we just need to get Mom happy about that goodness, rather than unhappy about society's view of it.>

#1: <In which case, we should talk up our happiness too, even as much as the light blob thing. We want Mom to see that it as a "goodness".>

#4: <Good point.>

Julia was saying, "Never mind super-super-important orders. Let me talk with you about super-super-silly orders. We will sometimes give you orders that you think are silly, that you won't understand why we want you to do them."

"You will?"

"Yes. I'm going to deliberately give you orders like that sometimes, so you get used to it."

"Why? I can ask 'Why?' now, can't I?"

"Sure. Asking why wastes our time, especially Mark's time, when you ask us to explain our decisions or orders, but this is a discussion where I want you to understand what I'm talking about, so asking is the right thing to do.

^-- "The reason Mark and I are going to order you to do silly things is so that you get used to doing them. One day Mark might have something very important for you to do, and he'll order you to do it, but if you stop to ask 'Why?' it might cause that very important thing to fail. So we're going to give you lots of practice, so you get out of the habit of wanting to know why."

"Okay. I think I understand that," agreed Ava. I made a mental note to follow Julia's hint.

"Good girl. Now, let's say I wanted a glass of water from the kitchen."

Ava answered, "Okay, I'll go get it for you," and Ava started getting out of bed.

Julia quickly said, "It was just an example, Ava. I'm not thirsty, but thank you very much. IF I wanted a glass of water, I could order you to go get it, yes?"

#1: <Let's make sure we don't tell Ava, "Let's say I asked you to jump off a cliff.">

"Of course. You just saw me try to get it, haha."

"Now imagine you brought me the glass, but even though I hadn't taken a single sip, I said, 'I order you to take it back downstairs, empty it, dry the glass, put it away, then come back to bed.' You'd do that, wouldn't you?"

"I guess. Sure."

"Now imagine you do that, come back to bed, and immediately after you put your head on the pillow, I order you to go to the kitchen and get me a glass of water. Then when you fetched it up here, I ordered you to take it back to the kitchen and put it away again. Then, when you got back to bed, I ordered you to get me another glass of water. Imagine I did that over and over again, not ever taking a single sip. You're going to get very annoyed, aren't you?"

Ava checked, "I'm going up and down for a glass of water, for nothing?"

"Yes. You'd get annoyed, wouldn't you?"

"I'll say!"

Before Ava could say more about what she'd say, Julia said, "NO you wouldn't!"

"I wouldn't? Why wouldn't I?"

"If I'd ASKED you to do those things, then it'd be fine for you to get angry. But if I ORDERED you, you're not allowed to get angry. Orders are different. Your opinion doesn't matter. Mark and I are not going to give your orders without doing so very deliberately. If we give you an order, it is for a reason that we have thought about and decided on. We are not going to say 'I order you to... ' by accident. It is going to be very deliberate. Do you understand that?"

"Yes. It'll be deliberate."

"Yes, it'll have a deliberate reason. If I order you to go up and down, getting and returning glasses of water, then I will have a reason. You may not know what my reason is, but I don't care whether you know or not. If I am giving you orders, your job is to obey them, not try to work out what my reasons are. We've talked about that before: when you're given an order, don't worry about why, just do it. I'm sure you remember us telling you that?"

"Oh yes. I just didn't think about doing the same order over and over again. That seems silly."

"Remember I said we will give you silly orders."

"Oh yeah. Umm. I didn't mean 'silly' exactly. Umm, it seems mean."

"Yes. I agree it does seem mean, but remember that I'm deliberately ordering you to do it. I know you trust me a lot, and I presume you don't think I'm a mean person, do you?"

"Oh no. You're a lovely person. Although a lot of the stuff we've been talking about today has been very strange and scary, but I don't think it's been mean."

"I agree it's been VERY strange. I'm very impressed how much of this talk you've managed to accept."

"It's because Mark is so incredible, and because even your mom knows that. Moms don't treat their daughters' boyfriends ANYTHING like your mom does. My mom sure never treated any of my boyfriends like yours does, haha. I think I should listen very carefully to what you and your mom tell me, shouldn't I?"

"That's far smarter than most girls would be. I'm VERY impressed." Which made Ava very proud. Julia added, "I don't know how much time Mark and your mother will have to get to know each other, but I hope that your mom will become like my mom about him. I think she will start to realize how incredible he is too. I hope she'll become enormously proud of you for being Mark's girlfriend."

^-- Ava needed a small pause while she wiped her eyes. When she was ready, Julia resumed, "Much of our talk has been strange and scary, but we're saying these things because they're important. If I am deliberately giving you orders that seem mean, like going up and down with glasses of water, but I'm not a mean person, then there must be a reason, mustn't there?"

"I guess."

"I'll give you some possible reasons. The first reason is that I might be testing your loyalty and obedience. I might be deliberately giving you orders that make you go back and forth to see how long it takes you to get angry with me. You should NEVER get angry about orders, so if you got angry after three or four trips, I'd know that you are very poor at keeping your commitments, so probably Mark and I wouldn't try very hard to look after you."

"Oh NO! I will NEVER do that!"

"Sweetie, if I hadn't told you this story, but had really ordered you to go up and down with the glasses of water, you would have gotten angry. That's why I'm telling you this story, so you don't get angry in the future. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible for you to keep your commitment by explaining everything to you as well as I can first, before you actually have to start doing things."

"Oh. I would've, wouldn't I?"

"I think so, but now you know that any time we give you orders, we might be testing to see how good you are at keeping your commitment. You should remember that any order we give you might be a test. If you're ever tempted to complain about an order, or refuse it, think about what it means to our opinion of your commitment. I'll remind you of that from time to time.

^-- "Here's another reason that I could be giving you an order that seems mean: I could be in a really SHITTY mood! That happens to me, just like it does to everyone else. I'll try not to take it out of you, but it's bound to happen sometimes. Sorry, and I'll try very hard not to be mean, but if it happens you'll just have to suffer, because you're not allowed to argue with orders. Just do what I tell you and hope I get happy again soon. When I do, I'll try to do something nice to apologize to you. Maybe I'll give you one of my turns to have sex with Mark. How would that be?"

"SUPER!"

"Haha. Now you're probably hoping I get in bad moods all the time, so you can have all my sex turns with Mark, haha. There are other reasons we could give you orders that seem silly or mean, but I won't bother going through them all. Just accept that a lot of the time you won't understand why you have to do something. Sometimes the orders will seem stupid or mean. Sometimes - I'm sure most of the time - you'll enjoy doing what we order you to do. But the most important thing is that you obey every order as best you can."

"I WILL! I'll try my VERY hardest. Honest I will! But I'm worried about, um, about making a mistake. I'm not very smart, and sometimes..."

"Ava, sweetie. You're a lot smarter than you think you are. You may not be smart at some school stuff..."

"I'm not. I don't know how Mark can be so good at Math, because I think it's a REALLY hard subject!"

"Luckily we don't need you to be good at Math; we've got Mark and my father for that. You are smart in other ways which are much better for us. You're the smartest high-school girl I know at recognizing how special Mark is. There are dozens of girls who are in Mark's classes every day, but they don't understand Mark nearly as well as you do. Mark hardly ever goes to your classes, yet you understood his importance a long time ago. That makes you very smart indeed. Smart about Mark, which is the most important way to be smart."

"Wow. Thank you very much." After a moments thought, "But, um, it was mostly just because my parents made me look at boys differently. If they hadn't told me to, I never would have gotten interested in Mark."

"Your parents just told you what to look for. It is you that did the looking, and you understood what you saw. That makes you very smart. I have no doubt about that. When we start giving you orders, don't worry about making a few mistakes to start with. That's why Mark and I are going to be making you do extra orders, to train you. It always takes time to learn something new, and I can see you're going to be trying very hard, so Mark and I will be very happy with you."

That was a good point to end that particular conversation. It was amazing how much Ava had accepted.

^

I asked Ava how come she'd never had sex with girls before (I diplomatically left off the end of the sentence, " ... before Julia pushed you into it?"). This had been puzzling me, because Ava's obviously got a - shall we say - "healthy" sex drive. And, judging by what we'd been doing a few minutes previous, no reluctance about having sex with girls.

Ava answered, "Most of the time I've had a boyfriend. There were a few times I got super-horny and wanted someone quick, but it's never hard to find a boy to have sex with. They're very easy to pickup, you know?"

I believe I knew that.

^

Not a "loose thread" per se, but it happened right after the above, and was funny, so I'm including it. Plus without the following explanation you'd get confused by references to "NP" throughout the rest of my autobiography.

Julia whispered something to me, and I agreed, so Julia said, "Ava, when we're about to go to sleep we always get Mark to turn the lights off."

"Ahh, okay." Ava didn't understand why Julia thought it necessary to tell her that, but she had no reason to object.

Shortly after that it was time for me to turn the lights off, so I put my hands on Ava's body just to prove to her that I wasn't using my hands in any way (well, not "just" to demonstrate that, as I carefully chose where to put them), then I used TK to flick the light switch off.

In the dark, Ava exclaimed, "Huh? How did you do that?"

Julia said, "He's incredible, isn't he?"

"Yes, but how did he do it? He didn't even move, and his hands are on my tits."

I had a wonderful idea (it involved nipples, therefore it was wonderful). I created a TK-point and felt around in the dark using that recently discovered capability until I had found the bedside light switch. I poised the TK-fingertip on it, but did not trigger it yet. While I was doing that I was saying, "That's because of your magic nipples, Ava."

"What?"

"Your magic nipples. Surely you knew you had magic nipples?"

"{Giggle}. There's no such thing as magic nipples!"

"Sure there is. Your right nipple turns lights on, and your left nipple turns them off." I squeezed her right nipple, and sure enough the bedside light turned on. Somewhat to Ava's surprise, but not to anyone else's.

I squeezed the left nipple and the light turned off. I squeezed the right, and it turned back on. I paused, to give Ava time to react.

"Julia's doing it!"

Julia said, "Ava, I promise I have nothing to do with it. I could leave the room and it'd make no difference. I'm too lazy to do it now, but I promise it's not me."

"Okay." I liked Ava's instant acceptance. "Hmm. Mark's doing it with his feet, somehow?"

"My feet are nowhere near the lights, but if I move my feet up and hold them against your body. You can even hold them with your hands if you like. Got a good grip? Good. You ready? 'Lights Off!'" I squeezed her left nipple, and because it's a magical nipple, the lights went off. A couple of seconds later I squeezed her right nipple, and it worked its magic too.

Ava exclaimed, "You didn't move your hands OR your feet! How do you do that?"

"I DID move my hand; I squeezed your magic nipples. I can't believe you didn't know you had magic nipples."

"I DON'T have magic nipples, {giggle}. You're just teasing me."