Chapter 203: Lily Returns

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Even though we'd wasted valuable study time late last night, my first job this morning was a detour to an ATM, where - once again - my heart was in my mouth waiting to see the account balance...

It had a delightful number of zeroes, with a very nice "8" in front. The numbers on the back being chump change; something like a day's interest! I took out $100 while I was here, then headed off to do some studying.

I started by browsing Aikido on both computers, two minds per computer. Each pair followed different links, looking for any interesting material. When we found anything good, all four minds looked at it.

We found out that there were lots of different styles of Aikido, some far more martial than art, others so art they sounded totally wishy-washy. As far as I knew there was only one Aikido club in Corvallis, and it seemed about one-third physical and two-thirds mental in what it considered important - although most of the initial training was necessarily physical - a division which suited me almost perfectly. Plus Sensei could presumably adapt his one-on-one teaching to what I wanted, if I made an issue out of something.

Some styles of Aikido had competitions which caught my attention for a second. Not because I wanted the glory of winning - that's definitely not my style - but so I could measure myself against other people. I decided I didn't need to, because Sensei was giving me plenty of feedback about that, and I'd presumably get more during the advanced class next week.

I was very puzzled about how they could have competitions in Aikido though. Two aikidoka facing each other, competing to defend themselves better than the other guy? All they had to do was take a step back each, and it was all over. Unless they took turns attacking each other, which would give the attacker motivation to be a non-cooperative smart-ass. I stopped wasting time thinking about it.

There were plenty of places I could buy Aikido stuff, some of which looked interesting, so I book-marked a couple of the biggest stores for when I had a credit card.

I also read a lot of text. Aikido stories, people's experiences, comparisons with other martial arts, etc. Nearly all of it was completely irrelevant, or even worse in my opinion ("Who would win between a Karate and Aikido black belt?" I couldn't care less!), but it was interesting to see what other aikidoka were interested in. Far too many seemed interested in fighting, which I thought was silly, but I suspected there was a sizable silent majority of 'good' students who were happy keeping their opinions to themselves. Those people would tend to be less aggressive in the real world and on the internet, I felt sure.

I had previously reached the conclusion that I was very unlikely to ever find anyone like me, probably because no such person existed, either at all, or at least in this w-dimension. If they'd merged twice, which is when my abilities seemed to take off, there'd only be a 25% chance they'd be in this dimension. With obviously even lower chances if they'd merged more than twice. Even if they did exist here, I still doubted I'd find them by reading websites. Nonetheless, I still was hopeful I'd come across something that gave me an "Oh my God!" moment. I did have several of those, by always as part of thinking, "Oh my God, how could people spend time writing this garbage."

Nor did I see anything that was super-impressive, or which gave me a brilliant idea for something else I could do with my abilities. There were a few minor ideas, but nothing that made me want to rush out and try them. As an example, one idea that'd occurred to me from time to time, and which Sensei had reminded me of with one of his O Sensei stories yesterday, was to keep one or more of my minds awake when 'I' was asleep. We might be able to take turns during the day, while the rest of the minds kept the body going. I hadn't done anything about it because I felt sure my body and minds needed sleep and I didn't want to risk messing around with that. I'd heard that people could go insane through lack of sleep, which would be a very good thing to avoid. Plus I was already active twenty out of the 24 hours per day, so there wasn't much gain to be had.

I did a couple of hours study, and then showered and dressed in the clothes Julia had dictated last night. I did think of digging out the grungiest clothes Julia had, putting them in a bag, then delivering them to her as if they'd come from her mom, saying, "Your mom couldn't understand why you wanted to wear these clothes to school, but here you go." But as momentarily tempting as that had been I shouldn't make fun of something that someone important to me cares to much about, even if they are being silly. Teasing people who aren't important to me is a different matter. That caution certainly wouldn't apply to some non-friends: Chloe's parents for example, as I'd love to mock their beliefs, i.e., treat them realistically.

Vanessa got Julia's fresh clothes together for me. Just as well, because I would have felt very uncomfortable rooting through Julia's underwear drawer.

At breakfast Andrew and Robert were very appreciative of my generosity. We exchanged all the usual platitudes. (You know the ones I mean, for when you give away $300,000.) I raised the risk element issue, which Prof reinforced, as it'd been his point originally. Regardless of my motivation, The Boys were very happy, even though they thought having to pay tax on my gift sucked.

I gave Prof my bank manager's card and explained to him "The bank manager needs to 'get to know me', to make sure I'm not an international terrorist plotting the downfall of the United States in between my dates with pretty girls. He wanted to know about my business, so I said I'd get my accountant to call him. He'd know better how to answer those sorts of questions, wouldn't he?"

"He would, but it's so easy I'll give your manager a call myself. He'll just be covering his ass, so it won't take long."

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I had very little interest in my bank manager's big ass, so we went on to the usual chat about studying. After that we talked briefly about Chloe, and then finally about mansion shopping. I expressed interest in the recent mansion-shopping developments, but Vanessa advised that I had to continue to "wait and see", which seemed to be entailing a lot of my waiting, but not much of my seeing.

After some last "Thank yous" from The Boys, I drove to my home to pick up the girls.

Julia was wrapped in a towel. I suggested, "I think you look well enough dressed for school already."

"Nah, white's out of fashion this season."

"No one has officially informed me of that so you've doubtless got it wrong, but here's the bag anyway." I reluctantly gave it to her and she went back to the bedroom to get dressed.

Mom gave me an apology for getting so upset about my fight yesterday. It wasn't the most heartfelt of apologies, as she was mostly apologizing for getting "too upset", which left open the issue about how much was the correct amount of upset: 10% less than she'd done, or 90% less?

I accepted her apology, then Mom said, "Carol says you're going to the bank at lunchtime?"

"Do you want me to bank your hard-earned money?"

"If you would, please."

"No problem. Any more plans about what to spend it on?"

"Your father's going to look into newer cars for us. Him and me, I mean. I understand Julia and you will find your own car."

"Something like that, yes. We haven't discussed it much, but I'm sure it'll come up sooner rather than later."

"What I want most is a family trip back to England to catch up with everyone there. Sometime during your summer vacation. That's okay with you, isn't it?"

"If you want to catch up with 'everyone' in England it might take longer than three months, but if it's just your family then that's fine. I've got nothing planned for summer, other than Prof twisting my arm to do some studying, which can certainly be interrupted for a family visit." [Prof suggested, and I did, take a laptop so I could study in the wee small hours while I was away.]

#2: <Which reminds me that we'd better call the warehouse where we normally work, to tell them they'll need to find someone else. That was a good job, but I somehow doubt we're going to do it this summer, are we?>

#4: <If you want to work in the warehouse, you'll have to find another body to do it with, because this one's going to be busy rubbing suntan lotion on beautiful bikini-clad girls.>

#2: <Suntan lotion is important on the parts of girls that stick up closer to the sun when they're lying down, either way up, so I'd better help you with that.>

#4: <Good decision.>

"Good," declared Mom. "I'd better start getting passports for everyone." My sisters and I didn't have passports yet, never having gone overseas before.

#1: <Remind Mom that Julia should come to see her family too.>

I added, "You haven't forgotten Julia coming with us, have you?"

"No. She's included in our family, even if it's unofficial. We discussed it with her at breakfast and she's looking forward to it."

I thought of something, "The phone's quiet. Did you take it off the hook?"

"Yes. We had to have it off all night. I put it back on for a few minutes this morning, but that soon got tiresome. I'll be glad when it dies down. I think I'll look into getting a phone service."

"What's that?"

"When someone calls our number, it doesn't ring here, but at the service. One of their staff answers it, and checks if the caller is on our list. If they are, they get put through, otherwise the service takes a message which they email to us, or phone through when they've got several; whichever we want."

"What an excellent idea! Personally I couldn't care less about the phone being off the hook, as anyone who's important to me has my mobile number, but if it bothers you, go for it."

"I won't be home much today, because we've got a few more places on the list to see this evening. I'll see what it's like on Wednesday. I might still make inquiries though, because I'm we might need it sooner or later."

"If I was a betting sort of guy, I'd bet you were right."

In the car I checked with Julia, "I was thinking about the weekend's trip. It's only one night, which I'm obviously going to be spending with the two of you mostly, it being our anniversary and all. You're not worried about Ava being there as well, are you?"

"No, Ava's fine. Carol and I spend plenty of time with you anyway. Ava is fun, and I'm sure she'll be more than happy if you sleep between Carol and me on Saturday night."

"Haha, yeah, she sure would."

"The important thing is that you show us you appreciate us. That's what anniversaries are for, after all. As long as we can see you're thinking of us, Ava's being there is fine."

"If I've finished adding up the bill from Rodeo Drive by then, I'll TRY to think appreciatively of you, haha. The second thought that worried me a little is how much time I'll have for the other girls. If we fly down early in the morning, we should have finished all the shopping by lunchtime, right?"

"Ha-ha, Mark."

"Am I being just a wee bit hopeful?"

"Wildly delusional would be a better description. With luck we might have time for dinner before we go to the concert."

"If I die of starvation on Saturday evening, the plane won't take you back on Sunday, so you'd better look after me! Okay, more realistically, you girls shop ALL DAY, rushing back to the hotel to get fancied up for a nice dinner somewhere before we go on to the concert. Sound about right?"

"Sounds perfect. I do believe you're starting to understand how girls work."

"Don't worry, it'll pass. By the time we get back from the concert it'll be fairly late, and we'll probably go to bed to celebrate our anniversary in the correct way: with sex rather than shopping. Then we'll spend Sunday doing tourist things, so when will the other girls get to spend any time with me? - he asks egotistically."

"When you say 'spend time with you', you mean have sex, don't you? Because they'll be spending most of both days in your company."

"Yeah, I guess I am. I didn't mean to speak so indirectly, but that's what it boils down to. Partly where I'm going with this is wondering whether I should have the girls stay overnight between now and then, to make up for not being able to sleep with them during the trip. I don't have anything particular in mind; I'm just asking your opinion."

"You're not under ANY obligation to them, Mark. Quite the reverse, as you're doing them a favor by taking them on the trip. They'll be falling all over themselves to thank you, whether or not they get any private time with you. But there are some opportunities. They can play with you in the plane going either way. I seem to vaguely remember some mention of a bed. That was right, wasn't it?"

"I think I might've heard something about that. I didn't really feel obligated; just worried about them having a good time, and that they'd expect it to include some sex with me."

"Assuming the lucky coincidence that the plane does have a bed, I'm sure you'll have time to give those girls a spin on it. If they REALLY want to have sex with you, ask them whether they want you to come to their room early Sunday morning, at 5am or so. Carol, Ava and I will probably need to sleep in for a while on Sunday morning, so you can give the other girls a good workout until we wake up and phone their room. There might be an issue with some of them being uncomfortable with so many people at once, but I don't think there'll be much discomfort. If there is, I'm sure you'll be able to work something out at the time."

"I'm a bit worried about the discomfort angle too, especially with Katelin. I don't want to hear any more, 'but I only like normal sex.' That got tiresome very fast."

Julia answered, "I doubt you'll have much problem for two reasons. When I invite Katelin, I'll make sure she understands that you're taking a group of girls down, and that group sex is going to happen. She doesn't have to participate, but she does have to stop being a wet blanket. There's also the point that 'normal sex' for a girl who thinks she has a shot at a multimillionaire, is 'any damned sex he wants'! Haha. So I think you'll find Katelin is more relaxed than last time. Alexis isn't prissy about sex, and Pat's fairly well convinced that threesomes and foursomes are fun, so I think you'll be fine. That's assuming they're willing to be woken up early Sunday morning, which is more likely to be a problem. But don't worry about it. They're obligated to you, not the other way around. All you have to do is tell them what you want to do, and let them participate as they wish."