Chapter 217: Sunday in Los Angeles; Doctor Mark

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Before I'd gone to sleep, I'd wondered what to do when I woke up. It'd be about 7:15am, and I was pretty sure none of the girls in either room would appreciate being woken at that time, although the humor of waking Alexis for more sex made me smile. Alexis had been leaning on Pat when she'd left. I'd given her rough sex, the way she likes it but it must have taken a toll on her body, so I was sure my knocking on her door after her getting only four hours of sleep would be the last thing she'd want. It was funny to think about, just not to do.

I decided to do a little bit of local sightseeing: to have a look through the hotel, check out its swimming pool, gymnasium, and whatever other facilities it had. If I happened to encounter the restaurant on the first floor for breakfast, all the better. After that I'd walk around the neighborhood.

So when I woke at the expected time, my first task was to get out of bed without disturbing the girls. Not for the first time, I wished there was a better way of doing this than clambering over one of the girls. Fortunately, Julia is getting used to my climbing over her by now, so I was able to do so without her becoming more than half-awake for a few seconds.

I got changed in the other room, wrote a note on the pad by the telephone, left it propped up on the bedside table, then went for my walk.

I was VERY impressed by the hotel, right up to the point when I saw the price for a breakfast. I was a millionaire, but that wouldn't last long if I bought breakfast for all the girls. I asked for directions to a bakery from the front desk, and went for a walk. I ended up walking a long way to get all the ingredients (croissants, jelly, fruit juice, etc.), but I knew the girls' bodies wouldn't be in a hurry to wake up.

In the note I'd left them, I'd requested they call my cellphone when they woke up. After buying the necessary ingredients for breakfast for everyone plus having a first breakfast by myself - all for a total cost less than the cost of one breakfast in the hotel - I still hadn't received a call, so I went for an aimless wander.

I was mostly just killing time, so I didn't care where I was going. I wanted to be able to get back to the hotel fairly quickly when Julia called me, so I passed the time by walking a large circle around the hotel. That gave me an experience of something I've never seen so strongly before, let alone been on the receiving end of: blatant, full-on, racial prejudice. At one point in my wanderings I was the only white person in sight, walking through a Black residential neighborhood. It was early, so there weren't many people about, but nearly every one of them glared aggressively at me, young children being the only exceptions. No one talked to me; they just glared with unblinking animosity for the tens of seconds it took for me to walk past them. I never felt to be in any real danger, but I was glad to have my special abilities and that it was only a couple of blocks before I reached a main street.

Prejudice gets raised as an issue often enough that I've thought about it theoretically many times, but to be personally involved in such a strong example of it was a wholly different experience for me, especially as it was in the reverse of the direction I've always thought about it going. I've heard Black people say countless times that prejudice is bad, and I thought they all felt that way, yet virtually every Black person I'd walked past had been blatantly racially prejudiced against me, and had wanted me to know it. [[My understanding of the many instinctual, psychological and cultural drivers for prejudice were, at this time, not even good enough to be called naïve, so I'll spare you my then thoughts on the matter. Let's just say I didn't know what to think, other than I knew at the personal level it was very unpleasant, and at the larger level very sad. Unfortunately it's human nature, and not just White humans.]]

I headed back to the hotel at 9:30am, still not having heard from anyone. I found my girls chatting in bed, not having emerged far enough to see my note.

I held up the grocery bags, saying, "Anyone for croissants?"

Not only was "anyone" for them, but "everyone" was.

Julia instructed, "Call the others."

"Do you think they'll be awake now?"

"If not, they need to be woken up. We're supposed to check out soon. Get them to clear everything out of their room and bring their bags up here for breakfast. Our robes too, in case the hotel charges us for leaving them in the wrong room. Then call the front desk and tell them we'll be checking out of this room at 11, but the other room will be clear at 10, okay?"

"Only if you let me kiss you all first."

Ava laughed with happiness when after I kissed Julia, I kissed Carol very enthusiastically.

I made the phone calls while the three girls made inroads on the breakfast I'd fetched.

In due course the others arrived, dumped their bags and happily dug into breakfast.

What with all the playing around that was required (fun in the shower, me being chased out of the second bedroom so I wouldn't see anyone's swimsuit, etc.), we only narrowly managed to get out of the room by 11.

We left our VERY large pile of luggage - most of it the girls' shopping - with the hotel, then headed out for some sightseeing.

I'll skip most of the day, as it was just sightseeing. The day did have some good points, most of them barely hidden by very small bikinis. Julia, Carol and Ava once again proved how wonderful they are as girlfriends, by taking off their blouses on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, to reveal almost everything. Carol had a one piece that seemed to be nothing more than a small collection of unusually arranged thin strips that somehow joined together in a stable, legal manner. Ava was wearing a thin, black, shiny bikini that molded itself to her athletically slim figure perfectly, and Julia was wearing the delightful bikini I'd already seen her wear in the hot tub, and was perfectly happy to see again.

The other three girls had nothing that came close to what my girls were wearing, so we had to go shopping. Julia had found out where there was a large swimwear store next to the Boardwalk, so we went looking for it. Alexis had previously said she'd wear anything I wanted, and she repeated that statement on the way to the store.

We didn't have time to waste today (try doing all the tourist things in LA in a single late-starting day), so as soon as we entered the store, I asked one of the assistants, "Where are your sexiest bikinis?"

Scattered all around the store, it turned out. They didn't display their bikinis sorted by sexiness, which wasn't very helpful of them. We had to start searching through the racks, and I soon started enjoying myself, as bikini shopping is great fun, especially when I discovered that some of the bikinis they sell in LA are WAY sexier than the ones they sell in Corvallis - they had tiny, SEE-THROUGH bikinis! The breast cups (more like "breast Band-Aids") were made of a fabric that had hundreds of regularly spaced small holes in it, so even in the very small locations that the bikini had any fabric, it didn't have much fabric. There's a lot to be said for a bikini which is almost entirely absent. The bottom half was made from the same fabric and had no lining. It was a G-string with a small, perforated panel that would barely cover the wearer's pussy, and even covered, the pussy would be visible. The guy who invented these - somehow I felt sure it was a guy - was BRILLIANT!

To my delighted surprise, Alexis said, "Find one in my size, and I'll try it on for you."

I may have been surprised, but I wasn't stupid! - I started searching. Julia found her one in the right size and black, which was appropriate for Alexis. She put it on, and it was blatant, in-your-face, sex-on-display. I loved it!

Carol said, "I think all of Mark's regular girls should have one."

I must have died and gone to Heaven without noticing, because Carol in one of these tiny, gauzy bikinis would be truly and delightfully obscene. Most of the girls were shocked. Not Julia though, she just laughed and praised, "Good girl!" A sentiment I TOTALLY agreed with.

#4: <In that bikini, we'll be able to see exactly how good she is!>

Julia cunningly added, "You're right, Carol. We need suits like that for when it's just all us lovers somewhere private." Thereby giving Carol an excuse to buy one. Julia, Ava and Carol started searching out their own obscene swimsuits.

Katelin and Pat couldn't bring themselves to go that far. They didn't even want to go as far as the suits that my three girls had bought in Corvallis.

I expected Julia to put some pressure on Katelin and Pat to be VERY sexy, but Julia was surprisingly relaxed about it. Her only real encouragement was when she said, "You know there are going to be a lot of girls around Mark over summer, especially when the news of his money gets out. I'm sure it won't take long into summer before you'll be wishing you'd chosen suits that were more to Mark's liking."

Pat soon mentioned a major problem, "But Mom would kill me if she found a suit like these in my room."

Julia said, "So give it to me to keep for you."

"You'd do that?"

"It's easy. Unlike your parents, mine won't object to racy bikinis. They saw Mark surrounded by a twenty naked girls a few weekends ago, so this is tame by comparison."

Katelin raised the next problem, "Umm, are we ever going to wear the new bikinis in public?"

Julia answered, "Not anywhere like the Aquatic Center, as there's too much chance of that getting back to your parents. But you might wear them if a group of us goes swimming at a remote beach or swimming hole, or at Mark's new place if he buys one with a pool."

#4: <We'd better tell Julia that it's essential we have a pool at our new house. In fact, let's buy a pool and not worry too much about whether it comes with a house.>

"Will other guys be around?"

"You know enough about Mark to know that's not likely, but I can't make promises about the future. No one will be making you go on such a date, Katelin. If your embarrassment is more important to you than being with Mark, stay at home."

They eventually bought suits that were about the same sexiness as those my girls had bought in Corvallis. That was a success as far as I was concerned, as their new bikinis were damned sexy. They were WAY sexier than either girl had ever worn before, and they looked VERY good in them, especially Pat.

So I ended up buying two sexy and four obscene swimsuits (fortunately I'd saved a lot of money by fetching our breakfasts). That was the good news. The bad news was that Julia bought me an obscene suit too. Actually about 15% of a suit, because 85% of it was missing. I put up a good fight, just like I do with every other protest that I lose. All the other girls protested too; they thought Julia should buy me several of them.

We left the store with Carol, Julia and Ava wearing the swimsuits they'd brought from Corvallis. They were all wearing skirts or shorts, so only the swimsuit tops were on display, but that was fine with me because that's the best half for visual appreciation. The obscene tops stayed in their bags, as there were thousands of people walking around so some discretion was called for. Pat and Katelin wore their new suits, which was brave of them and I appreciated it, especially in Pat's case, as she had more to appreciate.

Alexis had asked me, "Which of my suits do you want me to wear, Mark?"

"Thanks for asking, but wearing what you came down with is fine for now. It's too public out there for your wonderful new suit."

Speaking of "out there", Venice Beach wasn't quite what I expected; there were more tourists, more path-side stalls and entertainers, and fewer sexy roller-skating bikini girls. Something else I hadn't expected was to come across an outdoor gym, where lots of guys were showing off and occasionally doing some weight-training.

Julia said, "Mark, I seem to recall your agreeing to strip down to your Speedos if you saw other guys dressed similarly."

"You knew this was here, didn't you?"

#1: <I remember seeing this gym on TV before too. I just didn't realize it was on Venice Beach.>

It was quickly apparent that my six verging-on-ex-friends were more interested in me changing into my new 'European' swimsuit, than my "boring, old Speedos."

#4: <There's something seriously wrong with Europeans, if they like to see guys walking around with their asses hanging out.>

In self-defense, I quickly stripped down to my Speedos, which earned me some yelled out invitations from the muscle builders to join them. I wouldn't be seen dead EVER going to go near guys who walked around in public with their asses hanging out!

I strolled off quickly, with the six giggling girls rushing to catch up to me.

There was one event that occurred during our sightseeing day which was especially unusual. It also happened on the Venice Beach Walkway (or "Boardwalk", or whatever it's called).

The Walkway is a chaotic place. There are people selling all sorts of crap; religious weirdoes and other nutcases; entertainers such as dancers, musicians and jugglers; and thousands of tourists. The seven of us were careful to stay reasonably close together, which meant we were traveling quite slowly as we had to stop whenever one of us was interested in something.

I was standing to the side, waiting for Alexis to finish admiring a huge guy's many tattoos while the other girls browsed the nearby 'stores' (stuff displayed on mats spread on the ground). A young husband and wife walked hand-in-hand toward me. I was assuming they were married because the woman was heavily pregnant. The mother-to-be walked close enough to come within my proximity range, and I could immediately tell there was something wrong with the baby. I haven't encountered many pregnant women, but I have sensed enough of them to know how a late-pregnancy baby should 'look' in proximity. From her size, this woman's pregnancy was obviously in the last month, yet there was almost no focus to the baby's intentions. It wasn't asleep, and it wasn't still, so it had intended movements, but its intentions were far 'fuzzier' and more erratic than they should've been.

I walked behind her for a few steps, to make sure what I was sensing wasn't a momentary effect, which it wasn't. I couldn't decide what to do about it, if anything, but I was pretty sure Julia would make a better decision than me.

The couple were walking at a pretty steady rate, not stopping to gawk at anything, so I didn't have much time. I rushed back to Julia. I didn't have time for a full explanation, and didn't want to give one where the other girls could overhear, so I quickly told her, "I've got a tricky problem I need your private advice on. I don't have time to explain now, and we have to rush off. Let's get the other girls to wait for us here."

Julia immediately and determinedly started calling the other girls over. Carol and Ava responded quickly, but the others weren't quick. Katelin strolled back, but Pat and Alexis called back, "Why?", and, "I won't be long."

Julia didn't stop to argue. She said, "Carol and Ava. You're in charge. Make everyone wait on the grass over there. Mark and I have an emergency."

Katelin looked around panicky, asking, "What's wrong?"

Julia ignored her. To me she said, "Lead on."

I took her hand and we jogged off down the path to catch up to the pregnant woman. Katelin was still asking questions when we left her behind.

I'd been worried that the pregnant woman might turn off the path before I got her in my sight again, in which case I'd not be able to find her again in the crowd, so I was relieved when I caught sight of her up ahead.

I slowed, so I could quietly tell Julia, "See that pregnant woman and her husband ahead of us?"

"The one in the lime green track suit?"

"Yeah. There's something wrong with the baby, and I don't know what to do about it."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Remember how my Aikido Sensei tested my ability to detect an incoming punch, even from behind?"

Julia nodded.

"It's not mind reading, or any nonsense like that, merely an Aikido ability that I happen to be extraordinarily good at. When someone decides to make a physical movement, their mind projects their ki first, which I can read. I know you won't understand that, but it's like they imagine what they're just about to do, and I can read that imagination. Babies in the womb deliberately move themselves around too, which I can also read..."

Julia interrupted in surprise, "REALLY? Even though the baby is inside her?"

"Yeah. But that baby is not thinking properly about what it's doing. I sensed that when they walked past me before, and I'd like to get close enough to confirm it again, but if it is the same, what should we do about it?"

"Can you check the baby again now?"

"I need to be within three feet because it only works at short range. Let's walk up behind them."

We walked faster to catch up.

Once I was within range, I told Julia, "It's the same."

We slowed down so we could talk without their hearing us.

Julia asked me several questions about the medical situation: Was it a mental or physical problem? Was it recent? Could it be fixed? What would the symptoms be? Did it demand urgent action? What sex what the baby? Etc.

I could answer the first question, "It's almost certainly a mental problem," but my other answers were nearly always, "I don't know." The gender question got answered with, "I definitely don't know. It's impossible for me to tell that from how someone intends to move and arm or leg."

When Julia gave up on her questions, she said, "I think the best thing to do is to suggest they get the baby checked out as soon as they can, especially if there are any mental tests the doctors can do. I'll do the talking because it might seem better coming from a girl. You stand to one side and look unconnected to me. I'd prefer they not know about you, in case they get angry enough to call the police. After I talk with them, we'll both walk back to the others."

That's what we did. Julia kept following them at their pace, while I moved onto the grass beside the path then accelerated to get ahead of them a little. I stopped to ostensibly look at a mime artist, although I was really looking past him to watch Julia. She walked around the front of the parents-to-be and started talking to them.

I was too far away to hear anything, but the first minute was nice and calm, then they started getting worked up, their bodies stiffened and they started waving their arms around, especially the assumed husband.

Julia talked a bit longer, then quickly left in the direction of the other girls.

I stayed for a few seconds, to watch the couple having a heated discussion with each other. They didn't watch Julia leave, and they seemed totally oblivious to anyone else. Their voices were rising, and other people were starting to stare at them, or walk wide circles around them. I took off after Julia, catching up with her easily although she's very hard to find in a crowd.

I said, "Let's walk back on the grass, it's less crowded. They seemed to be arguing with each other after you left."

Julia agreed, "Yeah, that was starting as I left. The mother was into drugs. She said she'd given them up after she found out she was pregnant, but the father wasn't happy about what I told them."

"They believed you?"

"Yeah. They weren't smart people, and people believe almost anything in LA. I think the mother was already suspicious that things weren't going right."

I couldn't think of anything else to ask about the couple, but I could say, "Thanks very much. I didn't know what I should do, or even if I should do anything at all."

"No problem. I'm happy to help you, although I doubt our warning helped them. I'm amazed by your abilities. Is that really something you learned in Aikido?"

"Yes and no. You've seen a training session, and there were no very pregnant women involved, but an obvious part of fighting is anticipating your opponent's movements. I don't understand why or how, but people give off a mental energy when they're intending to move, and Aikido students learn how to read it. So I did learn it in Aikido, but I am very, very good at reading other people's ki - far better than my sensei is - so it's not as if anyone else could learn to sense a baby's mental health by going to Aikido classes for a while. I'm pretty sure Sensei couldn't detect anything wrong with that baby. It's possible some of the very top Aikido masters might be able to, but I'm guessing not many of them, if any."

Julia she grasped my arm fiercely, saying, "You're incredible." A couple of seconds later she added, "Maybe you should be studying medicine instead of mathematics?"

"I'd faint at the sight of blood. I have to shut my eyes when they show anything gory on TV. All I did was detect that the baby wasn't thinking about its movements clearly. Detecting thoughts about movement isn't sufficient to make me a good doctor. I could tell how many babies a pregnant woman was carrying, and I might be able to tell whether someone was sleeping, in a coma or braindead, but doctors have got machines that do all those things anyway. I can't think of any other medical use."

"What about healing cuts faster, like you're testing on Carol and me?"

"It's barely faster than normal healing. I don't know what I'm going to do in my life, but I hope it's something far more interesting than spending all day hanging around in a hospital helping people's cuts heal 15% faster during the time I'm focusing on them."

"So this is why you've suddenly got so much better at soccer. You'd be good at many competitive sports, wouldn't you?"

"It's only got a three-foot range, so sports like tennis wouldn't work but I'd probably be pretty good at close sports like boxing."