Chapter 187: Anniversary Present Revealed

Saturday, May 7, 2005 (Continued)

Carol stopped studying early, so she could have a shower and start getting ready. It hurt to watch her go to the shower alone. It would be a CONSIDERABLE understatement to say she'd been a temptation all day. I REALLY wanted to take her in my arms, a desire that was not helped by Carol's dressing so attractively. Not overtly sexy, but certainly good enough to easily remind me how good she looked naked. If it wasn't for my ability to concentrate having become so good, probably from all the practice of being on duty, I wouldn't have gotten any work done at all.

I let her go to the shower alone. Sigh.

Julia and Vanessa arrived home at 5:35. I know it was 5:35, because Julia rushed into the room and cried with anguish, "It's 5:35! You've got less than an hour to get ready!"

Julia was telling the truth, because I had 'only' 55 minutes. Sometimes - fortunately not often - Julia seems to mistake me for a girl. It takes me five minutes, tops, to get ready. The logic of my position was unassailable, but I have learned a couple of things about girls. The first was not to use logic on them. (For those of you who're curious, the second is that if you accidentally breach Rule#1, the best thing to do is immediately apologize and ask their forgiveness. Do NOT - and this is VERY important - do NOT point out that they're being illogical. Yes, I know that logic is by its very nature above personal issues, but you do NOT use it on a girl. They don't appreciate logic, hate it being forced on them, and nearly always take your use of it as a very personal insult. Hence if you do accidentally breach Rule#1, Rule#2 is to apologize profusely.)

So I jumped to my feet, saying, "Thank goodness you're back. I was getting worried that I was running out of time and I'd have to choose what to wear myself. Quick, tell me what I should wear?"

Julia's sarcasm detector completely failed to do its job because her total attention turned to a clothing issue. We rushed into the bedroom, Julia opened my closet and started pondering the issue.

I asked, "So how was the day overall? Did you make much forward progress?"

"Yes. Hang on, Mark. Let me think about this first." Silly me.

I was very worried when - after a couple of minutes' hard thinking - Julia produced exactly what I would have chosen (one of the top-quality outfits Julia had bought when we thought I'd need to dress up to go to a casino). It was scary that I might be starting to think like a girl.

I got dressed, then wondered what to do for the next fifty minutes. "I can see you're busy, Julia, so I'll stay out of your way. I'll be in the study if you need me."

Julia was deep in thought about serious stuff - deciding what she should wear - so she didn't really hear me.

I reminded her, "Remember that I need some time to tell you about your anniversary present. Before dinner would be best."

That got her attention. "Oh yes! What is it? I'm very eager to know."

"It's probably best you get dressed first, otherwise you might run out of time and be rushed into a poor clothing selection decision. We wouldn't want that! So you and Carol should come and see me in the study when you're ready."

Carol and Julia came to the study surprisingly quickly.

"You two look lovely."

"Thank you. What's our anniversary present?"

#1: <Just tell her. Julia doesn't like to be teased at times like this.>

"I was thinking that for our anniversary next Saturday, I'd book a private, luxury jet to fly us down to LA. We'd spend the day shopping on Rodeo Drive, go to a great mmpff..."

"WHEE!" said Carol, the girl that wasn't kissing me. Then she couldn't restrain herself, and joined in with the kisses. The girls obviously weren't, but I was still aware of the damned bugs. I figured a sound bug wouldn't be able to tell who was kissing whom, and even if there was video, anyone who knew girls knew that mentioning Rodeo Drive was an extremely extenuating circumstance. Besides, there was no practical way to stop the girls kissing me.

There was chaos for quite a while. Very delightful, happy chaos. During with I was informed, "OH MY GOD! You're WONDERFUL. We love you. You're the best guy EVER!", etc.

When I got a chance, I said, "You haven't let me finish. There's more to tell you yet."

"MORE! It's already FANTASTIC!"

"We'll go to a great show on Saturday evening, stay in a luxury hotel overnight, and fly back in the same private jet sometime on Sunday, depending on what you want to do Sunday."

More screams, hugs, kisses and dances for joy.

After another couple of minutes, "Haha. Hang on, there's more."

"NO! More?"

"Haha. Yep. I was thinking there'd be no point in your going to Rodeo Drive without plenty of money, so I'm going to add $10,000 cash." I worded it carefully, to make sure they didn't think it was $10,000 each.

"Oh my GOD! You're..." More kissing and laughter left that hanging. Whatever I was, I was pretty sure it was a good thing.

"There's more."

"NO WAY! I'm going to burst, haha."

"The plane's got a bed in it. We can make love in the plane! How cool is that!"

With far less excited voices, "Oh. That's good." | "That's nice."

#4: <How can they not get excited about having sex in a plane? It's so cool.>

#3: <Newsflash: Girls are strange. Let's move on. Tell them about choosing more passengers.>

"More importantly, there are also some extra seats. It doesn't cost any more to take passengers in the plane, so if you want to, you can invite some more people. There are two planes we could take. One can carry seven people, the other nine."

#1: <Should I mention that the 7-seater has a better bed? They seemed weirdly unimpressed by the bed/sex thing.>

#4: <Let's not mention it, and wait to see how many names they come up with. If they only want Ava to come, for instance, then we'll book the 7-seater.>

#3: <Good thinking. If we do tell them, it'd be better to do it later, rather than dampen the excitement now.>

Julia said, "How can it not cost more for more people?"

"I'm hiring the whole plane, so I've got all the seats already. If we leave any of them empty it makes no difference. The only real difference is in hotel accommodation, dinner and show tickets. None of those are very expensive, so I'll cover those. They can pay their own costs on Rodeo Drive though."

Julia giggled, adding, "Yeah, that could get VERY expensive! This is amazing. How did you think of something so fantastic?"

#4: <Maybe because Julia several times used it as the final and clinching example of why the other girls should chase me. As far as I can tell, it's the ultimate female fantasy.>

I said, "Because I have a deep and profound understanding of how the female psyche operates. That and I remember you saying the same thing. Remember how you told some girls I'd one day be able to fly girls to Paris, Rome or Milan for fashion shopping trips?"

"Ahh yes, I do. Wow. This is fantastic. I'm overwhelmed."

"Me too," agreed Carol. "This is the most amazing present I've even heard of, let alone have someone give to me. Thank you, Mark. I love you so much."

"You're welcome, sweetie. I like to spoil my sisters from time to time." I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling, and I saw that Carol got it.

I added, "I've got a list of shows we could see Saturday evening. Hang on." I disengaged myself from the girls enough to reach into the drawer.

I pulled out the two lists and passed them over, "One's a list of concerts, the other's theater shows. If you choose which one you want to see, I can arrange tickets for us. If you think of taking anyone else, then you should ask them if they want to go to the same show too, so I can get tickets for them too. Which reminds me, Julia, I don't know whether you want to or not - it's entirely up to you, because it's your present - but if you want to take other girls you can probably use this trip for some excellent mind-games with who you choose or don't choose."

"Oh boy! You're right. I never thought of that..."

#3: <That's got to prove that Julia was TOTALLY overwhelmed. It's not like her to miss seeing an opportunity like that.>

#4: <I'm still a little puzzled why this is Julia's present. Why isn't it Carol's and ours?>

#1: <I didn't say Carol because of the bugs. Of course Carol is equal with Julia. I'm not sure why it's not our choice though. Somehow this is our present to the girls, rather than a three-way anniversary celebration. We wouldn't go to Rodeo Drive if it'd been something for all three of us, but Prof never said anything about that, and I suggest we don't ask Julia or Carol to explain it.>

#4: <No, I think not. Maybe we could ask Vanessa or Mom. They're bound to understand why females' desire for equality seems to disappear at the oddest moments.>

To make sure Carol knew she wasn't excluded, I said, "Julia, you and Carol should get together to decide who to invite, what show you want to see, what you want to do on the Sunday before we come back, maybe what you want to spend the $10,000 on."

"Clothes!"

"Haha. Yes Carol, I was assuming that."

"They have FANTASTIC clothes on Rodeo Drive, Mark. The very best brands."

"Yes. I have heard that it's a reasonably good shopping area..."

"Ha!"

" ... And while you're thinking about that, you can think about the exact schedule too. We could go down Friday night and/or come back early Monday morning, if you want."

"Gosh," profaned Julia. "There's so much to think about. Can we really invite more people?"

"Sure. Up to a total of seven or nine. The 7-seater plane is a little better, but if you wanted to invite a total of eight or nine, that'd be okay too. I need to book the plane, hotel and show tickets, so I'd suggest that you try to make up your mind about numbers fairly quickly."

Julia asked, "Do you count as one of the seven or nine, or is it really eight or ten?"

"I haven't made any adjustments like that. The three of us count as three, so there's room for four or six more."

Julia looked at Carol, "Ava, right?"

"Of course."

"You don't mind if we invite Ava, do you?"

"Not at all. You could make it just the three of us if you wanted, but if you invited anyone else, I thought Ava would be at the top of the list."

"This is too fantastic not to invite others. This is awesome."

"Oh, I should say that I mentioned to Prof that he and Vanessa might want to come. Prof was very helpful. I was going to keep it secret until we were in the plane, but he said you'd like to know as soon as possible, so you could anticipate and plan it. He was very right, wasn't he?"

"I'll say. What a great dad! So that means we've only got one or three more seats. That's not many. What's the difference between the planes?"

"Umm, the plane that sounds smaller is actually the same physical size, but it's more luxurious inside.

^-- "I need to correct you about one thing. I told Prof that he and Vanessa could come if they want, but he didn't say yes. He thought probably not, but he's going to ask if Vanessa wants to see any of the shows.

^-- "Another little thing I should tell you is that I told Ava that you'd tell her a secret soon, probably tonight. I had in mind that'd be you inviting her on this trip, but if you'd decided not to invite her, it could just be that we were rich now. Not that it's essential, but as you are sure that you're going to invite her, I'd like you to do it almost immediately, but tell her to keep it a secret. I want to find out how good she is at keeping secrets." The last sentence was deliberately worded a little incorrectly, because I didn't want the buggers to hear that I already had other secrets.

Julia agreed, "Good idea. The four of us can drive to Lily's together, and we can tell her in the car. That'll be fun. It'll also be very good to see whether she can restrain her excitement in front of the other girls."

"Yeah. She won't have any time at all to calm down, so it'll be a pretty hard test for her."

"You said you needed the numbers fairly quickly, right?" I nodded, while I watched the wheels turning in Julia's head. She continued, "I don't think I'll tell the other girls tonight. Let's give Ava's test until Monday. I'll get Mom and Dad to decide before then, so I know how many seats we've got, and then I think I'll tell individual girls that they're being considered, but they're not to tell anyone. It'll be interesting to see if any of them can't keep their mouths shut. It'll be torture for them, but I'll make their place on the plane depend on it. It doesn't matter too much, but it'd be ideal if the rest of school didn't hear about your being rich until the next week, and this would be a superb way for them to hear about it. Every girl in school is going to wet herself thinking about it."

Already I could see that Prof's, "Tell them immediately" advice was very good advice indeed. Julia was having great fun thinking through all the machinations.

Julia added, "Who do you want to come, darling?"

"This is your choice. Prof also suggested that you might want to invite one or more of your girlfriends from before you started spending all your time with me. It's up to you."

"I don't think so. My life is very happily centered on you now. My girlfriends will sink or swim based on how well they get on with you, which is mostly poorly, as they don't seem to understand how hard they should be trying. I'm more than happy with the friendships I'm making because of you, especially with Carol." The girls hugged. "Ava too. I like her too. It's amazing how many girls can't stop behaving pretentiously toward guys, but Ava doesn't have that problem with you."

"I certainly agree with you about Ava. Alexis is like that too. She knows what she wants and is perfectly happy for everyone to know it. No pretense at all about any of that. It easy to have fun with her."

"So you want Alexis to be one of the girls who comes to Rodeo Drive?"

#3: <Haha. I would have said, "who comes on the plane", or "who comes to LA." But Julia's mind seems to work differently, as if we didn't already know.>

"It's your choice, Julia."

"I want to take the girls that'll please you the most."

We went back and forth about this a few times, and Julia eventually won.

I'd been thinking about my list, so when Julia finally insisted that I state my preferences, I said, "One of the things that amazes me about the girls I've been getting to know recently, is how few of them are actually good company. A couple of months ago I would've fallen all over myself for the chance to spend time with any of them, but now I can't even fill half a dozen seats. Alexis would be good to take, just for her fun value. She's not really girlfriend material, but she's good fun.

^-- "Lily isn't fun at all. She's very useful to us, and the sexual power is a thrill to a guy, even though it probably shouldn't be. I think Lily will be a good experience for me, but this trip is about sentimentality and fun, so she wouldn't fit in.

^-- "Katelin would be okay to take. She's having a tough time with her family in so much legal trouble because of me, so it'd be a good way to partially make up for all the trouble I've caused her.

^-- "Pat's very pretty and nice, but there's no strong spark there. I wouldn't object to taking her, but she's really only near the top of the list because there's not much competition.

^-- "Chloe is the last of the girls we're seeing tonight. Before the last lunch I had with her I would've been eager to invite her, but that lunch disillusioned me about her. I definitely don't want to force a girl for sex; it's TOTALLY against my character. Even though Andrew and Robert explained that she really wants it and is only pretending not to, her making me act like some sort of rapist, even just with verbal force, is a big turn-off for me. That's about it. Any other girl we took would be more of a getting-to-know-her trip than anything else."