Chapter 207: Ava's Clever Idea

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

I had a good study session, getting in plenty of undistracted hours. I felt good about it too, especially knowing that memory sharing meant that I wasn't going down a blind alley that I'd have to fix by re-studying both courses with my minds swapped.

At breakfast Prof was pleased with my progress, and he added, "You have another assignment coming up shortly. I'll drop it in your study, but just review it like you did for the last one."

I collected Julia's clothes from Vanessa, and delivered them to my home. The girls directed me to go to school via an ATM, so they could withdraw Lily's payment for their phones. Carol giving her half to Julia, to pass on to Lily.

Julia did that soon after our arrival, while I stood there thanking Lily for being so wonderful.

"You welcome. Friday we have big fun?"

"Yes indeed. I'll even take these wonderful boots off for it, haha."

During the morning the three 'seat-filler' girls were very happy with me. Pat was especially excited and bouncy, exclaiming, "Only three days to go! I'm getting VERY excited."

I was pleased to make her so happy, as it's very enjoyable to see Pat bounce (have I mentioned that she has rather nice breasts?). I was reminded to check something, "Did Julia tell you we're going to Venice Beach on the Sunday, just to stroll along the walkway with you girls in small bikinis?"

"No, she never mentioned that."

I rushed to Julia. "Julia! Julia! I just found out something that could ruin the entire trip."

"Oh no! What?"

"I think you totally failed to tell the girls to bring tiny bikinis for the walk along Venice Beach on Sunday!"

It took quite a while for Julia to recover enough to see any humor in my joke.

"You've already seen the girls naked, but some of them failing to wear tiny bikinis on Sunday would 'ruin the entire trip.' Don't you think that's unnecessary?"

"You've already got two closets full of clothes. Don't you think doing any more clothes shopping is unnecessary?"

"Haha. Okay, you've convinced me. I'll tell them. Carol, Ava and I have suitable swimsuits, but the others may not. Do you want to buy them suits in LA?"

"I think you just hit upon the ONLY type of clothes shopping I'd enjoy. Provided you don't chase me out of the store like you did last time. Seeing as how I'm paying and a pervert, I want to be in charge. Telling them what to try on and which one they'll be walking out of the store wearing."

Julia said, "I'll give them a choice, but I'll make sure they know how much you'll enjoy shopping with them."

Pat and Katelin approached me later, asking, "Ahh, how small are you thinking?"

"I'm tempted to say we'd start with the smallest bikinis in the store and then cut the excess material off, but that might be too mean. Definitely sexy though. Hide-from-your-parents-or-they'll-have-a-fit sexy. Summer's coming soon, and I want to take some of my favorite girls swimming. I'm expecting to have quite a few girls interested in me by then, and I'm enjoyably anticipating their competing to get my attention. The smaller the bikini, the greater my attention. I'm VERY immature that way." I figured multimillionaires can get away with being immature, especially when they're male and only fifteen.

"Oh."

They said they'd think about it, and walked away looking worried.

When I next saw Alexis I asked her, "Did Julia tell you about wearing a sexy bikini on Sunday?"

"Yep. I don't have one that small, but she said you'd like to buy us one, right?"

"I'm male, aren't I? You don't seem worried about it at all? Pat and Katelin had concerns about my buying something too sexy for them."

"I flashed my tits in class, so who cares about wearing a small bikini? You want me to wear dental floss, I'll wear it. I figure you can afford to bail me out if I get arrested."

"Good girl!"

In one of my little conversations with Katelin, I remembered a question that'd occurred to me during her visit yesterday. I hadn't wanted to take any unnecessary risks in front of her mother, but I could ask now, "How are you getting along with your brothers these days?"

Katelin suddenly looked worried, as she answered, "Okay, I guess. Wayne's a lot better. Junior and Gunner are just as bad, if not worse. They don't like you, and they blame me for bringing you home."

#4: <She's still putting all the responsibility on the boys, so it's hardly surprising there hasn't been much improvement.>

#1: <But we're not interested in getting involved again, I hope?>

#4: <Not even to comment about it. We told her enough times already. If she was going to get it, she would have by now.>

I wasn't surprised to hear Gunner was still unpleasant toward Katelin because I'd seen him a few times around school recently, and he always gives me very dirty looks. No more than that, which is finally wise of him. I made light of Katelin's comment by saying, "They REALLY are stupid, aren't they? They insulted me, tried to crush my hand, refused to let me leave, then attacked me; but somehow it's your fault. It doesn't sound like they learned much. At least you've got one reasonably sensible brother."

"Yeah. It's given Wayne a scare, but the others have just got angry."

"Some people are their own worst enemies. Never mind."

I changed the subject, which caused Katelin to suddenly look relieved. I was puzzled, so I asked, "Why were you so worried just before, Katelin?"

"Oh," she said, looking worried again. "Ahh, I thought you might be unhappy that I'm failing your test, and not let me come to LA."

"Don't worry about that. Not even a little bit. I told you before that the test is canceled, and I meant it. It's your life, so you live it your way. I think you and your brothers are missing out on being happier people, but I'm DEFINITELY not getting involved again! You're not going to lose your place on the trip unless you do something I dislike, such as blabbing about my secret, or getting really annoyingly negative about my sex-life. You know there's going to be some group sex on this trip, assuming I can wrestle any of you girls away from the stores."

"Yeah, Julia told me."

"It's unlikely much of it will one-on-one in a private room. If you want some fun, there are probably going to be a few other girls involved too. If you're not comfortable, please don't make any depressing comments, just leave the room."

"Julia's already warned me. The first time was a big shock to me, but I'm over that now. I know you better too, and you're a much better guy than I thought before, so I'll behave myself. Except Mom and Dad probably wouldn't see it that way, haha."

"Good."

#1: <I wonder if her "much better guy" decodes into "much richer guy"?>

#2: <Do we care? She's not our type enough to be a serious girlfriend. If she participates well this weekend she'll get included in other fun things; but if not, then not. There are more than enough girls to keep us happy this weekend, so no skin off our nose either way.>

I hadn't properly attended any lunch this week yet, so Julia had deliberately spread the word that I should be at this one. Once everyone had arrived, there must have been nearly a hundred people. Unfortunately I had to write "people" rather than "girls", because there were quite a few guys in attendance too. About a dozen standing or sitting in small groups around the periphery, with another half a dozen sitting next to THEIR - they made it obvious - girlfriends.

[This is a good point for a small digression. I'm a little worried that I've given you the impression that every girl in school was after me. The ones I write about are ones that are, so if that's all you read, you might think that's all there is. That's not the case at all. As Julia has previously mentioned, there are approximately 700 girls at my high school, about 80 of which were sitting in front of me right now, at the largest gathering I've ever had. Eighty girls is a huge number to be interested in one guy, but it represents only about 10% of possible number. Julia had spread the word that only good looking girls need try to chase me, so that had theoretically discouraged the attendance of some of the girls who would've liked to date me, but most of the C-list or lower girls had turned up out of curiosity anyway.]

The first order of business was my delicious Chinese lunch, while the girls chatted among themselves.

While I was eating, Julia quietly told me that she'd found out earlier in the day that one of the other 10th grade girls had called Chloe last night, and had been told by Mrs. Moon that Chloe had changed schools because our school was "immoral and a bad influence." Mrs. Moon had also told the calling girl that she didn't want anyone from our school to call Chloe. Carol had already found out the first part of that news, and we already knew that the Moons didn't want to hear from us, but it was sad that they were cutting off contact from everyone at this school.

There was other chat, but none of it was relevant to pretty much anything at all. Once my mouth was free for less essential activities, I was surprised that I didn't get to use it much. The girls were happy talking among themselves most of the time, and the group was so large that there were pockets of conversation throughout it.

Most of Pipeline Group 1A was sitting together. Julia asked them, "Is Friday's date planning under control?" I listened carefully, because I hadn't heard a word about what it was going to be, and I was getting curious now.

Several of them spoke at once, all saying variations of, "Everything's fine," which was less than informative.

I asked, "I haven't heard what the date is yet? Is it a secret, or something?"

"We'd rather not say," was the consensus answer. One girl added, "We're fairly confident you'll like it, even though it's hard to think of something sixteen girls can do for just one guy." Which caused quite a lot of hilarity and joking around all the listeners.

When she got a chance, the spokesgirl for 1A said, "Not THAT! Julia said none of that in the first two dates. We've got to make Mark happy another way. That's tricky, because 'that' is the only thing guys have on their mind, haha."

There was more joking about that. I liked the comment of Clara, one of the members of 1A, who told everyone, "Wait till it's your turns; it's trickier than you think. We're used to guys planning most of the dates, and we can easily give them a good time by letting them have some you-know-what. But without that, and trying to find something fair for all sixteen of us, is a challenge." I liked the comment about giving guys "you-know-what." The bit about being fair was ok too.

Group 1B, who were 11th graders, told Julia, "We'll choose our date on the weekend. We want to see what happens to the other group first." I thought that was leaving it worryingly late for the date on Tuesday, in my humble opinion. I hope they realize how important I am!

Other than checking on the two pipeline groups, the rest was just free-form discussion. Most of it was of no import, but I'll give a few slightly significant extracts:

• One girl announced a medical update on the broken arm injuries (nothing worth repeating here), which caused some jokes. There were some jealous looking boyfriends in earshot, so I made a comment about any idiots who attacked me from now on would get hospitalized, arrested and expelled.

• Julia was asked when she'd choose which groups would be Pipeline Groups 2A and 2B. There were a lot of girls interested in that, to the visible displeasure of some of their boyfriends. Julia answered, "Maybe the end of next week or beginning of the next."

• Another girl asked me where I'd been the last couple of lunchtimes. I enjoyed answering, "Family business." I thought it was a little amusing (the pun on "business"), and maybe some of them might remember it when news of my being rich comes out.

• Mackenzie's was asked about her pop quiz prize. She told them, "I'm having a date with Mark on Thursday. JUST a date! Nothing sexy. My mom let me have a mid-week date, which is strange. Mark won't tell me where we're going either." Even though Mackenzie was sitting fairly close, I loudly said, "I did give you a hint though, Mackenzie. Tell the girls what I said." Mackenzie blushed a little, telling the girls, "Mark told my mom we were going on a 'dirty date.' Mom didn't get upset, which is NOT what I'd expect her to do."

The rest of the lunch conversation isn't worth reporting on, other than saying that my popularity was noticeably higher than it'd been at the last group lunch. The girls hung on my every word, laughed at all my jokes, wanted to be near me, and LOVED my new cellphone.

During one of the afternoon's journeys from one classroom to the next, a group of about a dozen guys approached me in a non-threatening manner, to express their disapproval at so many girls being interested in me. Apparently (you should make sure you're sitting down when you read this, because it's quite shocking), the boys thought I was "being unfair."

I'd prepared a speech for exactly this situation ages ago, and had used extracts from it several times in short conversations with guys over the last couple of weeks, so I was well practiced at trotting it out. I knew it had no chance of success, but I had some spare time and it made me sound good for any girls walking past.

I adopted a loud, speech-making voice to discourage interruption and for any wandering-past girls, "Listen up, guys. You want to narrow the difference between us when it comes to having girls interested in you. There are two different ways of achieving that: You can try to drag me down, like the last six guys tried. They're headed for jail, where THEY are going to be the girlfriends! Or you can narrow the gap by improving yourselves. A couple of years ago I was like you: wishing I was better with girls. I decided to do something about it." Which was true, I'd committed suicide. "There are four things I decided to improve. First, physique. It just takes exercise and good nutrition. Don't complain that your body doesn't attract girls; start an exercise program. Second, clothes. Once you've got the body, buy good clothes. Girls think clothes are very important, and it's girls you're trying to impress, so it's obvious what you need to do. I recommend Raging Rocky's Rags. Third, good grades. I get up to study at 3am nearly every morning, including Saturdays and Sundays. Fourth, and by far the most important, BE NICE TO GIRLS! Be their friends, like them for people. Some of them are REALLY good people!"

#4: <In addition, some of them are listening, and they'll tell their friends, so shovel it on even deeper please.>

My shoveling was interrupted by some of the guys starting to make inane comments to me. Which I guess was fair, considering how inane my comments had been. Their comments to my much-abbreviated speech were the usual sorts of things:

• "No, that's not what we mean." (Translation: "We don't want to make any effort.")

• "We just want you to stop encouraging so many girls to chase you." (Translation: "We're idiots.")

• "Your pipeline dating idea has got most of the girls in school focused on you."

I didn't respond to most of their comments as I wasn't actually talking to them but to the girls who were listening to us, and I couldn't twist most of the interruptions around to make me sound good. I did respond to the last point with the usual counter-argument, "Half the girls will be eliminated from their pipeline group every date. After three dates there are two girls left and fourteen are back in circulation. The pipeline rules are that I won't date those girls again at least until the next school year, and at least half of those I won't date again even then. They'll be available for you again, BUT they're not going to waste their time on boys who aren't prepared to make any effort to be more attractive for girls, and who won't be NICE to them. That's all you have to do guys. There are seven hundred girls in this school, and very few guys who are nice enough to them. If you improve your behavior, good girls will find you."

After addressing a few of the points that I could use, I simply raised my voice and carried on with another part of my speech, "I'm EXTREMELY grateful to my wonderful sisters for waking me up to how nice some girls are, and how enjoyable their company can be. If you value girls for WHO they are, rather than WHAT you guys want to use them for, then you'll have far happier lives. Seriously, if you leer and make snide comments at a girl because she wears a low-cut top one day, she's going to remember, and she's also going to tell her girlfriends that you're a pig. The main reason you don't have more girls chasing after you is because you keep making yourself look bad. If you want girls to be nice to you; BE NICE TO THEM! It's hardly rocket science.

^-- "Exercise, dress well, study, being nice, and if at all possible, value girls for the wonderful people many of them are. But I can see most of you aren't interested in that. You want girls to throw themselves at your feet without your having done anything to deserve it. In that case, get an after-school job and earn a few million dollars. That'll get plenty of a certain type of girl to throw herself at you, haha."

I could see that, as expected, I'd failed to penetrate the guys' thick skulls. Guys who're stupid enough to complain to me that I'm not being fair, are hardly likely to agree that exercise and studying hard are good ideas. Plenty of female passersby had heard me though. Word would spread that I'd said nice things about how wonderful girls can be, and had urged guys to treat girls nicer. So, ironically, these idiots had helped me be even more successful with girls.

What constantly amazes me is why guys think complaining to me is a good idea. Surely they can't seriously expect me to say, "Oh my God you're right; I AM being unfair! I'll stop dating pretty girls immediately. Please let me make up for my mistake by giving you three or four of the best ones."

That was enough of that pointless, boring crap, so I excused myself to go to my next class.

When we got to the parking lot at the end of school, there were several girls hopefully hanging around, including both of Mackenzie's sisters. Carol and Donna were already by the car, so I simply waved at the crowed as we got in the car and drove off. They'll learn.

In the car I said, "I've got to get my watch band adjusted because it needs a couple of links taken out and this watch is too fancy for Dad to adjust like he normally does. Do you want me to drop you home first, or do you want to hang around the stores while it's being done?"

"We can window-shop for a while."

We parked in town and I went to take care of my business, while two girls with a great deal of money in their bank accounts went window-shopping.

The lady who I dealt with commented, "Nice watch."

She hadn't exclaimed it with great enthusiasm, or anything extreme like that, merely commented, but she did give me the idea of asking, "Do you know what it's roughly worth?"

"We don't deal with Breitlings often, but I'd guess about a thousand."

"Wow! I had no idea it was worth that much."

"They're a good watch. Did someone give it to you as a gift?"

"Yeah, just last night. They bought it in Hong Kong."

We finished arranging what I wanted done and I was asked to come back in thirty minutes, so I did a little shopping myself: two anniversary cards for the girls (the clerk didn't ask why I needed two), and a couple of interesting looking books for myself. I didn't see the girls, but I have noticed that we tend to be interested in different types of stores, so that wasn't surprising. I did send Julia a "30 minutes" text message, so they could pace themselves.

I spent most of the half hour skimming-without-buying some books about psychic powers. They were silly, but they passed the time. Unfortunately they didn't give me any good ideas for things to try.

The lady recognized me when I walked back into the watch store. She called out, "It's all done. I'll get it for you."

I'd read the watch's manual while playing dress-up last evening, and I'd set the watch for the correct day, date and time then. All I had to do was put it on now and admire it.

#1: <Don't forget we have to move our cellphone from our left to our right hip. Otherwise we won't 'match' properly, and as far as I can tell, that's a very, very bad thing.>

While I was putting it on, she said, "I asked our watchmaker to check whether it's a genuine Breitling because there are a lot of fakes sold in Hong Kong. He says it is genuine, so it's a very nice present. It matches your ring very well too. It's almost perfect."

"Yes, I noticed that too. It's a wonderful present."

I wandered back to the car, impressed by the quality of the Chinese sex-slave I had and checking the time frequently. I REALLY like my new watch.

#2: <It even has a second hand, so we can generate semi-random numbers next time we play roulette.>

#4: <If it's cold enough for Hell to freeze over, I don't think our watch will work.>

I sent Julia another message, "I'm back at car. Take your time." I wasn't in a hurry, as the only plan I had for this evening was a blitz on all my schoolwork. I hadn't caught up from my being on the lam yet, although this evening should accomplish that easily.