Chapter 188: Getting Ready to Go to the Chengs'

Saturday, May 7, 2005 (Continued)

Walking downstairs, we could hear the noise of several conversations coming from various directions. We started with the kitchen, because that's where the most important people tend to congregate - a joke that is unfair to Prof. After seeing him in action in Vegas, and with that scheme having worked so fantastically, my respect for him has leaped even higher.

Sure enough, the cooks were all there: Mom, Vanessa and Katie West. Also Ava and Sophia. We greeted everyone.

I asked, "How come no one came to get us sooner, we were only chatting?"

#2: <Oops. Do we really want to imply to Ava's mom that Julia, Carol and us might have been doing something else we shouldn't have.>

[It's worth mentioning that our internal conversation was still improving in efficiency. The last message was actually more like, <"Oops." + "Imply to Ava's Mom" + <the emotion of uncertainty> + <the image of Carol, Julia and me having sex together with a red line diagonally through it>.> Our messages increasingly can't be directly rendered into typed words, and even those parts that are in words are increasingly ungrammatical. You - my readers - would struggle to decipher the meanings of literal transcriptions of the English parts of our messages. That doesn't affect us as our minds work in much the same way and we're evolving our shorthand communications as we go. As a considerate author, I will continue to 'translate' our messages into what I would have said, had I been restricted to reasonably grammatically correct English.]

I added, "We had some schoolwork open, but we were mostly talking."

Vanessa said, "Prof told us you were busy. It's fine. Julia, can I borrow you for a quick chat?"

Carol and I did social niceties chit-chat while Vanessa and Julia moved to the far end of the kitchen, had a quiet talk for a few seconds then returned.

Julia preempted my question by telling me, "I'll tell you later." [She told me in the car. It was only Vanessa saying that she and Prof wouldn't come to LA with us, and asking whether Julia wanted Mark's wealth and house-buying to be kept secret. Julia had answered the question with, "Yes please. Ideally until just after we get back from LA."]

Julia, Carol, Ava and I wandered through to the dining room and living room to meet most of everyone else. Donna was wearing the pretty dress she'd worn to our wedding, and came in for some compliments from the four of us.

Of the three extra girls I'd invited, Pat and Chloe hadn't arrived yet, but we found Alexis in the living room chatting to the menfolk. She was dressed in an attractive and appropriate dress, and was even wearing nice shoes rather than her usual combat boots.

I greeted her, "I'm glad to see you, Alexis. You're looking very nice." In case you were expecting Alexis to transform from an ugly duckling into the proverbial princess, let me tell you that my life isn't a Disney production. (I somehow doubt they'll ever want to buy the rights to my life story!). Alexis was never an ugly duckling anyway - she was reasonably good looking, although her hair was too short to be "pretty", and even I could tell that her approach to makeup was rudimentary.

I pointed at her legs, saying, "What are those?" Alexis, and everyone listening to us - which was most of the people in the room - looked down in puzzlement.

^-- I gave it a second or two, then added, "Oh, they're LEGS! I'm so used to seeing you in black jeans and boots that I didn't recognize them for a while. How long have you had those?"

"Haha. You've seen me naked with my legs waving in the air."

#2: <Oops, I'd forgotten about that. It probably wasn't the best thing for her to say in the middle of a bunch of adults.>

#4: <Probably not. Trust Alexis not to have any shame.>

#3: <Mr. West looks a little surprised. Maybe concerned too. So be careful how you answer.>

"Of course I remember. But they were pointing upward that time. Now they're pointing down, so I had trouble recognizing them. Joking aside, you look very different in a dress. It's nice to see you this way."

"Thank you. You look very classy yourself. That's some nice clothes you've got on."

"What, these old things? They're just something Julia spent all day dragging me around town to buy."

Vanessa stuck her head in the room, calling, "Julia, Mrs. Moon is here with Chloe to see you."

I started following Julia, but Julia cautioned me, "I doubt Chloe's told her parents about you. It might be best if you stay here."

Fine by me, so I stayed. Which gave Alexis the chance to start questioning me, "Where have you been for the last week?"

I didn't want to use the OSU lie on Alexis because she'd learn otherwise when she was invited on next weekend's shopping trip.

"I've been busy. I had some things I wanted to do, so I skipped a few days of school."

"There are stories about people asking questions about you around school."

"So I've heard."

"Are you in trouble?"

"Nope. Quite the opposite actually. Everything's looking pretty damned good at the moment, and I'm not just talking about seeing you in a dress."

"How about OUT of the dress? When's that gonna happen again?"

#4: <Ava's father heard that too. But there's probably not much point in trying to hide it. We didn't think tonight through very carefully, because we forgot the Wests are going to see me with other girls who are all obviously going to be girlfriend types. That's how the girls will be introduced to Lily's family too. We're going to have some explaining to do shortly.>

I said, "That's mostly going to depend on Julia and Ava." Not strictly true, but it'd sound good for Mr. West.

"It will?" asked both Alexis and Ava.

"Yep. Ava will find out why first. Ava, you'll come to Lily's with Julia, Carol and me. They've got a nice little surprise to tell you on the way. Alexis, you'll probably find out in a few days." I thought it was okay to tell Alexis that, because I was reasonably impressed by her having dressed up so nicely. She'd have to make a complete mess-up at tonight's dinner to lose her seat, and Julia had already told me that was unlikely.

"Cool," opined Ava. "Is that the secret you mentioned before?"

"Yep. And don't bother asking what it is now."

"Oh. Okay. I have to wait till the car?"

Alexis asked, "So we're going to have sex soon?"

"You'll have to wait and see, but quite likely." Which was explicit enough that Ava's dad was looking like he was going to say something.

^-- To steal his thunder a bit, I said, "Alexis, have you met my girlfriend Ava's father, Carson West? I think your comments might have concerned him a little."

Alexis said, "I thought everyone knew you had sex with lots of girls? Julia said you'd invited several of your girlfriends tonight, so I assumed everyone was cool with it."

Alexis looked worried now, and Mr. West even more so. I'd successfully worried two people now. My reassurance skills needed improving.

Ava started trying to reassure her dad, "It's okay, Dad. I know all about Mark's girlfriends. I have lunch with most of them every day at school. I don't mind at all. I think it's amazing that someone as popular as Mark and Julia have let me into their lives so much."

While Ava was doing her best, I was having a quick internal debate. I'd come up with a few thoughts that seemed good. One of them was that I'd tell the Wests that I was worth about $6.5 million (before taxes, argh!). That should convince them I was not an ordinary boy, and that - hopefully - ordinary rules didn't apply to me (except, unfortunately, the damned tax rules). It'd be best to have that conversation during dinner at their place tomorrow.

When Ava paused, I spoke my other idea, "We can talk about this much easier at your place tomorrow evening, Mr. West. I apologize that this has come as a bit of a shock, but remember that your dinner was originally scheduled for last night, so I would've had a chance to explain everything then." If I'd thought of it. "For the moment I can give you one thing to think about. A couple of weeks ago Ava and I made a commitment to each other. Not a marriage commitment obviously, but still a commitment that we both take seriously. Ava is abiding by her side of the commitment wonderfully well; and without wanting to sound too boastful, Julia and I are keeping up our end very well, aren't we, Ava?"

Ava enthusiastically agreed, "I'll say! Mark and Julia are FANTASTIC to me. I'm having the best time, Dad, and I know they'll be wonderful to me later. Everything's perfect."

I said, "I made a commitment to Ava, which I am doing my best to keep. That commitment did NOT include my being sexually faithful to her. Ava didn't ask for it, and neither did I offer it, so it's irrelevant to our relationship. I know we call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but that's just because there's not a word that describes our relationship and it's easier to say 'girlfriend' than explaining the unusual nuances to everyone we meet. But if you judge us by how boyfriends and girlfriends normally behave, then you're going to get all sorts of wrong impressions."

I thought my point was logically flawless, so Mr. West - being male and therefore logical - should be convinced. No such luck; he still looked worried.

Prof spoke up, "Well said, Mark. Carson, I was present when Mark, Julia and Ava exchanged their commitments. As best I can judge, they are more than meeting their commitments to each other. They all seem very happy to be in each other's company, so I have no doubt that everything is going perfectly. Why aren't you judging Mark harshly because he doesn't cook Ava's meals at night, the way a good mother would?"

Mr. West was a thoughtful guy, so he didn't open his mouth until he'd thought about it. Then he said, "Your point being he's just as much not Ava's mother as he's not her boyfriend?"

"Correct. It'd be foolish to judge them by a criterion they weren't trying to achieve. Would you drive your car into the river, then criticize it because it didn't float? Their relationship wasn't designed for monogamy. If Ava had insisted on it, she wouldn't have gotten the relationship because Mark was already committed to Julia, and he's not the sort of boy who breaks commitments. Luckily for Ava, Julia believes that no girl should possess 100% of Mark, not even herself, so she's willing to share. Ava believes the same, so she's also willing to share. Neither girl has a problem with Mark being with other girls. I suggest you talk with your wife about this, because several of Mark's girlfriends will be joining us tonight."

"You and Vanessa are comfortable with this?"

"Not only are we 'comfortable with it, ' we actively encourage it. A couple of months ago Vanessa and I couldn't have imagined ever supporting anyone's partner doing that, let alone our daughter's, but a couple of months ago I could not have imagined anyone like Mark either. Hopefully you'll get to know Mark well enough yourself, but in the meantime I suggest you remember that your daughter has to make her own decisions, and she's made this one very enthusiastically."

Mr. West turned to me, determinedly saying, "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

"Of course, sir. As much as you want."

#2: <Or, better still, Julia will talk about it, because she can sell this much better than we can.>

#4: <What a pity Vanessa won't be there. She could have them begging us to play around.>

Mr. West walked out of the room, presumably to tell his wife the bad news about me.

Alexis said, "I'm sorry, Mark. I didn't mean to cause trouble."

"It's not your fault at all. Tonight there's going to be you, Chloe, Pat, Lily, Julia and Ava around me. Ava's parents are both accountants, so they're bound to work out that the total number of girlfriends is more than one, haha. Actually they know about Julia already, but you know what I mean. You just happened to be the girl that arrived the earliest, which certainly isn't a fault. The only fault is mine, for stupidly not anticipating such an obvious problem. Unfortunately not all parents are as incredibly tolerant as Julia's." Prof was standing nearby, and that'd been my way of saying "Thanks" to him. He smiled back.

Alexis agreed, "'Tolerant'! They HELP you screw around. Julia's so straight I never would have thought her parents would be like that."

"Please try harder to insult someone. You're wearing a dress for the first time I've seen, so I'm itching to pull it up and put you over my knees, spanky."

"Haha. Any time you want, big boy."

Prof said, "I'll go check that the Wests are okay."

"Before you go, I haven't seen Robert and Ashley?"

"They're meeting us there. Ashley has something that's holding her up."

Prof left, and to make conversation as much as anything, I said, "I wonder what's keeping Julia and Chloe."

Alexis said, "She's so screwed in the head about sex, why are you wasting your time on her?"

From what Julia said about Chloe's upcoming change in behavior, she was going to end up coming to LA. If Alexis and Ava were going to spend the weekend in Chloe's company, it might be a good idea to give them some explanation of what was going on with her. I said, "Actually, her head is the main reason..."

#4: <I can't believe you could say that with a straight face!>

" ... You two can keep this to yourselves, can't you?" Alexis and Ava nodded. I moved so I could keep an eye out for anyone getting near us (we were standing at the far end of the living room, so that was easy), then I continued, "I won't mention names, but there are too many girls at school who have overly high opinions of their bodies and beauty, and they treat other people badly as a result. I've seen them mistreat you many times Alexis, so you know what I mean?"

"Yeah. They're bitches all right."

"Yeah. They put so much effort into being superior, that it makes them inferior. If it wasn't such a waste, I'd find the irony of that very amusing. You two are totally different from them. Neither of you puts on any pretense of superiority. Your openness, honesty and willingness to be yourselves is a major part of why I like both of you so much."

A surprised Alexis exclaimed, "You like me! I thought you were just playing around with me."

"Not at all. I wouldn't have invited you tonight unless I liked you."

"You invited Chloe and Pat, and I haven't noticed that you like them much."

"Hmm. You caught me there. I was speaking without thinking, and ended up being thoughtlessly trite. I'll try again. I invited Julia and Ava tonight because they are my girlfriends. I invited you, Chloe and Pat each for different reasons. The reason I invited you was because I like you and enjoy the fun we have together. So in answer to your sort-of-accusation, I DO like you, and I'm NOT just playing around with you, whatever you think that means."

"But you're miles out of my league. Why would you waste time on me?"

"To quote what I said three seconds ago, 'Because I like you and enjoy the fun we have together.' That's easily a good enough reason for me to spend time with you. You need to go see the person who decides who goes into what league, and get yourself moved a hell of a long way up from where you think you are now. In my opinion, you and Ava are both easily superior to the so-called - and self-called - 'superior' girls."

Ava was comfortable enough with our relationship already not to need the reassurance, but Alexis was very surprised and pleased. That didn't stop her saying, "But you could date half the girls in school if you wanted. I think you ARE going to date half the girls, with Julia's pipeline."

"Yeah, but I'm sure that nearly all of them will be miles below my league, not like my present company."

It was weird to talk about myself as if I was top-league material. Clearly Alexis thought I was, and I intellectually knew that Julia had made it happen, but it was not a concept that sat easily alongside my image of myself. They weren't even in the same room as each other.

I had only intended to give Alexis a brief compliment on the way through explaining Chloe, so it was well past time to get back onto track. I said, "Of course my brain could be addled by seeing you in a dress, and by those two white things you've got poking downward from under it."

Both girls reacted by looking down to see what I was referring to, which I thought was quite amusing.

They'd both worked out what the two white things I'd referred to were, so I continued, "Before I got distracted by pointing out the error in the league placements, I was heading toward saying that Chloe's problem comes from her being sexy to guys too. In her case, it's more extreme than and different from the usual Beautiful Arrogant Girl Syndrome, but it's still rooted in her seeing how much guys are attracted to her. Most girls react to that by thinking they're superior, Chloe's reaction is to believe that every guy is a rapist just waiting to pounce on her. That's exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.

^-- "Too many of the 'beautiful girls' are ugly on the inside, but I think Chloe's personality is fundamental quite nice, so I'm much more inclined to try to help her than I would be to help the internally ugly girls. Julia and I are trying to straighten out Chloe's attitude to guys. If we can do that, she'll have a much better life, and we think she'll actually be good company. I can't say we're having much success, but it's worth a try. I invited her tonight because there's going to be me and Julia's two brothers there, none of whom are going to look like they're going to pounce on top of her. Hopefully it'll help Chloe realize that not all guys are wanna-be rapists."

Alexis laughed, then added, "I thought you'd invited her because you wanted to fuck her, haha. Trust you to have a complicated reason."

"Complicated and damned hard. Why is it that people say, 'It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, ' but when I try to get one to change her mind about something, it's like hitting my head against a brick wall?"

Alexis' answer was, "You think you've got problems! How is it that when I want a guy to go slow, his hands are all over me; but when I want one particular guy to go fast, he won't move at all? That's very frustrating. Unlike Wonder Tits, I do like sex, and I'd like another go at you. I've heard stories about how many hours you can go for, and I'd love to have an overnighter with you."

#4: <I'm starting to agree with her. What do you guys think?>

#2: <I wouldn't object at all.>

#3: <Count me in. One problem though, we need to spend some time with our real girls first. Carol's going to miss out until Monday night, so we should definitely spend Monday and Tuesday nights with her. After that might be okay one night. Maybe Alexis and Ava could double up one night, or something like that.>

"I'm seriously tempted. It's definitely getting time that we did that properly, isn't it?"

"Damn right it is! You only gave me a little taste before, and I've been hanging out for the real thing ever since."

"You know I've been away, so I definitely have to catch up with Julia and Ava first, and spend time with my family, by the middle of the week I might be able to invite you around. What's your attitude to threesomes?"

"Fantastic with two guys, but two girls doesn't do anything for me."

#3: <Let's make sure we wear a rubber! This girl's been around the block a few times.>

#4: <It looks like our conversation is just about to end; here comes all the other girls, at long last.>

Julia, Carol, Chloe and Pat were all heading toward us, with Chloe in the lead. When she saw me, she rushed across the room and into my rather surprised arms.

#4: <Oww! When her tits hit our chest, it actually hurt. What the hell is her bra made of? The same armor they use on tanks?>

Chloe exclaimed, "Praise God you're okay. I was so worried. There were all sorts of stories going around about you being in trouble."

#4: <"Praise God"! That's not a good sign. Please tell me we haven't put all this effort into a girl who's a useless Christian?>

#2: <Julia did say she'd throw herself at us when she heard we were rich. Not throw herself like she just did now hopefully; more the naked, sexual type of throwing.>

#3: <But what if Julia didn't know Chloe was a stupidly anti-sex Christian?>

#2: <We often say "Thank God", without our being religious. It's just an expression.>

#4: <But we'd never say "Praise God". That sounds overly religious to me. Another thing that pisses me off is that the top she's got on has a zip up the back, so we can't get her to expose any of her chest at all. Do you think she wore it deliberately?>

#2: <I think there's no way we'll ever find out. Asking her isn't going to work. Not that there's anything we can do about it now.>

#4: <We'd already more or less agreed with Julia's idea that Chloe has to deflower herself on our cock. That test is even more important now. We don't want to waste months of effort on a girl whose panties are locked solidly shut.>

#3: <Or waste a plane seat either. I'd much rather we took Pat. Pat's got a damned nice body. She's a bit dull, but not nearly as dull as a prudish Christian would be.>

#2: <Let me try a little experiment.>

I said, "I don't think 'Praise God' has got anything to do with me getting back. More like 'Praise Honda'. I drove Julia's car for many hundreds of miles without a single problem."