Chapter 243: Carol's Cuties; I Mismanage Them

Sunday, June 19, 2005

I woke, got dressed, and went downstairs for a breakfast. I'd only slept for 2.5 hours, but my last meal was several hours ago, plus my body expects a breakfast after it wakes up and I wouldn't want to disappoint it.

Back in my study, the first thing I did was quietly move the scrolling keyboard off the desk to put it on the floor behind one of the computers, where it couldn't easily be seen by anyone in the room, and certainly not by anyone peeking in from the doorway. It only took a couple of minutes to get completely used to its new location, after which my minds didn't have to think about how to move their fingers to do whatever scrolling they wanted.

I had another incredibly productive study session, until Julia woke up, jumped out of bed, and onto my lap. She babbled excitedly about how fantastic everything was, especially today being the day the women got to choose which mansion 'we' are going to buy. I'll be the only person writing a check, but apparently that was an inconsequential technicality.

It was difficult to find a neat ending point with seven screens and one Julia, so we went to wake up my sisters. One at a time, starting with Carol.

We quietly walked up to Carol, then making sure I kept aware of Donna being asleep in my proximity sense, we woke Carol with kisses. It was quite weird, as 3A got excited seeing Julia kiss Carol, especially as Julia was naked. Carol had one of her big nighties on though, unfortunately.

3B told 3A: <You ain't seen nothin' yet!>

Carol was happy to be woken this way, even kissing Julia back, which caused 3A to get even more excited, and 3B to send them, <You STILL ain't seen nothin' yet.>

Julia said sweet things like, "Good morning my lovely wife-to-be. Mark says we're going to have a wonderful life together."

Carol agreed, "Yeah, I know. I was amazed by what he was telling Vanessa last night. I can't wait. I hope Mom and Dad agree."

There was more like that, including Julia expressing her excitement at looking at the short-shortlisted four properties today, and choosing which one to go for.

After a couple more minutes, I interrupted Julia to say, "Good morning, Donna."

Donna played possum. She was facing away from me, and #8 couldn't resist announcing, "I'd better put some clothes on before Donna sees me naked."

Julia and Carol were momentarily confused by my saying that while I was wearing my usual studying clothes (tracksuit pants, T-shirt and tracksuit top). Their confusion was answered when Donna immediately spun around, saying, "Good mor ... Oh." She looked disappointed.

I'd been surprised by how enthusiastic Donna had been to see me naked, so that served as a warning to me to make sure I didn't do anything to encourage her totally improper feelings. Meanwhile I sternly told her, "That'll teach you to play possum trying to eavesdrop on what we were saying."

"I wasn't playing possum. I just woke up."

"Tsk, tsk," I said, sounding just like Mom. "You should know better than to lie to me, Donna."

Apparently not, because she lied to me again, "I wasn't lying. I just woke up."

It wasn't worth having a battle over it, so I just said, "I'll get a headstart on breakfast while you get dressed." I gave Carol and Julia an NP-brush on the cheek, then left the room.

Vanessa and Prof were in the kitchen. Vanessa told me, "Prof and I discussed last night's topic in bed. We agree with what you want to do, and we suggest that we should be the first ones to talk with your parents about it." (Last evening, we'd discussed breaking it to Mom and Dad in a big meeting.)

"Thank you very much, and I absolutely agree with your talking about it with them first. That's great."

I would've been very surprised if they hadn't agreed. They'd been in favor in 3B-land, they hadn't reacted negatively during last evening's conversation, and my abilities were even greater now, especially the one they valued the most: my studying ability. I was sure that Carol and me having babies had already occurred to them, and that they were probably happy that I'd raised it - not that they'd shown ANY such happiness in the grilling they'd given us yesterday! I was very happy to have them talk with Mom and Dad first.

When the girls came down, Vanessa repeated her statement about agreeing "to last night's topic" and talking to our mom and dad first.

Julia and Carol were both highly appreciative, which made Donna highly curious. She wasn't too happy about not being told.

When it came time to leave, Donna ran for the front seat again. Julia wasn't coming with us, preferring to come with Vanessa when they collected Mom in half an hour or so, no doubt so she could dig for more information about her parents' thoughts on the Carol proposal, so Donna wasn't going against the wording of my previous decision. Nonetheless, she would've done better to quietly get into the backseat. It was probably better to wait until after the wedding before making an issue out of it. Carol's excitement at Vanessa's and Prof's agreement had died down since the start of breakfast, but she was still clearly VERY happy. So it was probably just as well that she wasn't sitting next to me, because I could easily imagine her holding my hand, talking too much to me, or my running NP-fingertips over parts of her body which wouldn't have done anything to diminish her excitement. Given that we were about to face Mom, Carol's being highly excited would've made Mom too curious.

I spent most of the trip quietly thinking, and I had a cunning idea about how to control Donna. It meant showing and explaining light blobs to Andrew and Robert, but I was pretty comfortable with that. I'd talk with Julia and Vanessa about that the next time I had a chance. It was definitely not a topic for a phone call, given our Government's predilection for spying on its citizens.

One of the good things about Donna being so good at rushing, is that she rushes away too. As soon as I parked, she was out of the car and running inside, giving me time to warn Carol not to look too happy in front of Mom and Dad in case they asked why.

Inside Carol reported to Mom, and I reported to Dad. Dad is not one to waste valuable time on pointless chitchat, so we were soon at work on Mom and Dad's list of handyman tasks, plus the usual weekend chores. Donna escaped to go play with some of her friends - how come that for all of my life, life has seemed easier for people younger and older than me?

Vanessa and Julia arrived soon after we started. They didn't waste time chitchatting now, as they were in a hurry to find something to spend a few million dollars on. Hopefully less than $2.5 million, or the balance would be coming out of Julia's money. I forgot to remind them of that before they left, but I would after they returned. [I did too. Julia said she certainly hadn't forgotten. My laying down the law had made a strong impression on her.]

I used to be so uncoordinated that I was almost a danger to myself and others, but these days I'm very coordinated, quite strong, don't get tired, and I quickly understand whatever it is that Dad wants me to do, so I'm much more useful. We made very good progress all morning, until Carol called us in for lunch.

The first of Carol's Cuties arrived early, toward the end of lunch. She was cutely flustered to meet me, which I quietly enjoyed. She'd ostensibly come to spend time with Carol, but she hung around the table looking at me. Carol had finished her lunch, but Cutie#1 was in no hurry to leave the room.

I thought of sitting Carol on my lap and cuddling her. I knew Carol's friends would think I was wonderful for being so nice to my sister (whereas guys would immediately think "SEX!" because that's what guys do). The Cuties not thinking like that made it a good way to impress the panties off them. There was only one Cutie here though, so I should save that tactic for later. Which made me worry about whether I'd get a chance to do it later, as the girls would probably go to Carol's room, especially if they wanted to get changed into their swimsuits to show me. I certainly hadn't forgotten that possibility, but I worried whether Carol had.

That gave me another idea: that I should be in Carol's room with her on my lap with most of the girls, and when they were ready to start putting on their swimsuits, Carol should invite me to stay and watch. I'd be a gentleman, saying something like, "Thank you Carol. All of your friends are very pretty and I'm sure most boys would love to receive that invitation, but I will leave the room because some of the girls may not be comfortable with my seeing them get changed. I'll wait in my room until you're all ready to call me." I could ham that up with all sorts of extra crap. I'd learned from Julia that the easiest way to get girls to throw themselves at me was to pretend to be above such motivations.

Then I wondered about how the girls were going to get from here to the pool. Presumably some would arrive on bikes, and some get dropped off by their parents. Should I offer my services as taxi driver (specializing in bikini-clad girls) or not? If I did, that might cause them all to arrive without transport in the future. Having twenty-odd girls all needing transport would be a pain, especially if it was eating into time when I'd rather be doing something else, as opposed to chores like I had now.

I suspected that I should've thought about all this before, and discussed it with Carol too. It was a bit awkward now, especially with Cutie#2 riding up the drive on her bike. I made two mental notes:

1. When an event is worth planning, it'd be a really good idea to do so before it starts.

2. Events which included several cute girls who might put on their bikinis for me are top of the list for being worth planning.

I consoled myself with the thought that these girls were interested in me, so I'd have other opportunities in the future, which WOULD be better planned.

When the second girl had joined us inside, Dad suggested, "Mark, you and Carol should sit in the living room to entertain Carol's friends. I'll send them through as they arrive." A suggestion met with obvious enthusiasm from Carol and her two early Cuties. I guess Dad knew that doing chores with him couldn't compete with pretty girls, not even if he put a bikini on.

Dad's suggestion was welcome, other than the important point that I hadn't finished my lunch yet. I'd also been thinking about the worry that in the future visits all the girls might not have any transport if I provided a taxi service today. Those points made me ask, "Carol, I was expecting your friends to arrive at 1pm. Wasn't that the time you told me?"

Carol answered, "Yes. Lauren and Bailey are early."

"I thought so. In that case please take Lauren and Bailey into the living room. I'll join you at 1pm. I don't want to encourage girls to arrive early, otherwise they'll start coming earlier and earlier. I've got to finish my lunch and help with the chores I promised." I felt uncomfortable being even slightly mean to the two Cuties. I'd several times seen Julia be a merciless tyrant over punctuality, but even saying as little as I had made me want to apologize.

Carol and the Cuties tried to apologize to me, which I dismissed with, "I haven't made an issue about punctuality before so there's no problem. Go on to the living room, and I'll join you at one o'clock."

Dad looked at me curiously. If he'd been Mom he would have raised his eyebrow, but guys can't carry that off.

I explained to him, "The girls that'll be coming today are doing so because they're Carol's friends and they want to meet me. Some of them will bike here, others will get dropped off. If I offered to take all the girls that didn't have bikes to the pool, then next time Carol invited them here none of them would come by bike. Similarly with socializing with them now. If I reward their arriving early with something they want - time with me - then they'll arrive even earlier in the future, which will be increasingly disruptive. And before you look any more impressed, I'm quoting Julia almost word for word. She's made a big deal about this issue with the Liaisons and other girls. I'll grab another sandwich then make a start on the lawn mowing until one o'clock."

Dad said, "I'm impressed, even if you learned it from Julia. I'm also surprised to hear you sound arrogant."

"Yes, I know it comes across that way, but it's because it's hard to talk about other people liking me without seeming arrogant about it. I don't think it's going to my head. I'm sure Carol would let me know if I went too far, because I can't imagine her liking me if I behaved that way. Here comes another one. I'll take my sandwich out the back way. I'll start mowing the lawn, okay?"

"Sure. You'll need to fill the tank before you start."

I left out the back, leaving Dad to direct Cutie#3 to the living room. I'd been thinking about whether I should take off my T-shirt to mow the lawn, then accidentally leave it off when I came back inside, but after Dad's "arrogant" comment, I decided I'd better leave it on.

I started the mowing at the backyard to avoid arriving Cuties, amusing myself with the thought that I could do the whole lawn while I sat in a chair, thanks to my eightfold increase in NP force. Actually, it was somewhat more than eightfold now, as each on-duty mind had been diligently practicing the conscious projection of ki and pushing walls for a couple of days short of a full month now (that's assuming the weeks of Kiatsu for Prof counted, which I was almost certain it did because it was the same thing, simply projecting ki). Despite the jump in my amount of ki caused by the merge, I could see that the amount I was projecting was slowly increasing, and presumably my NP force was too, although I'd need accurate scales to measure that, probably when school restarted.

^

[I'll mention something now that I should really wait several months before giving you the outcome of. It was so dreadfully tedious at the time, and so disappointing when I realized the situation, that I can't bring myself to keep writing about it. I'm talking about my strengthening NP.

Before my most recent merge, my NP force had increased from 14.1 to 14.2 pounds in two weeks. Encouraged by that small gain, I've been diligently trying to strengthen it by pushing against walls or the ground almost every waking hour, which I have a LOT of. I was still doing that now, and continued to do it for several more months. After school restarted three months from now, I weighed my NP force on the very accurate scales in a science lab, and the force had increased nicely (something like 25% after allowing for the likely eightfold effect of the merge). I regularly re-weighed it thereafter, to track the improvement rate.

After a few more months, we noticed that the rate at which our NP force was increasing (5% of the base amount per month) was very much the same as the increase in the amount of ki we projected, as best we could judge that with our proximity sense. (The 14.1 to 14.2 pounds increase in two weeks is well below 2.5%, but I'll explain that shortly.)

Pushing the walls and ground continuously is a VERY boring, tedious process. It's highly repetitive, isn't fun and unfortunately requires conscious attention to make it happen. In contrast, the other thing we were constantly practicing - consciously projecting ki out of our body - was actually enjoyable as it helped the on-duty mind meditate.

Seeing them both increase by the same amount, and knowing that they were both ki-effects, made us wonder whether one of them was dependent on the other. So we weighed our NP then totally stopped pushing against walls and the ground. Two weeks later we weighed our NP again. It'd increased by the equivalent of 5% per month.

For the next two weeks we pushed against walls religiously, but did not practice projecting ki from our body. At the end of that period we weighed our NP and it hadn't increased at all. So we'd spend MONTHS pushing with our NP-points for almost our every waking hour, for absolutely no benefit. Our NP force was getting stronger only because we had more ki, as a result of our projection practicing. (The 14.1 to 14.2 pounds increase in two weeks was less than 2.5% because the projection practice started about a week after the NP practice.)

We threw up our hands in disgust, kicked ourselves, moaned about ALL the unnecessary drudgery, and then carried on with our life without doing any wall-pushing. Our ki and NP force both continued to improve by 5% per month.

Disappointingly, over this time our proximity range also never increased through practice. It'd increased by overcoming the expectation that it was centered on our center, and the merge had doubled it, but there was no incremental improvement from practicing with it. Why some things improved and some didn't was a mystery. Not for the first time, I wished these abilities had come with an instruction manual.]

^

[A much more exciting aspect of the amount of NP force I had, was the possibility of my being able to fly.

I weighed about 170 pounds. My untrained ki projection gave me a seven-mind maximum of 98 pounds of force. Ideally I only wanted to use seven minds as using all eight meant active centering, which wasn't reliable. If I lost center, I'd lose altitude at a rate that wouldn't be to my liking. Hopefully I could recenter and 'catch' myself, but "hopefully" in such circumstances isn't a good word to rely on. So I'll stick with a seven-mind example.

Increasing my existing force (98 pounds) to the force I'd need to lift myself (170 pounds) is a 75% increase just to be able to make myself weightless, which would take 15 months' training at +5% per month. (The +5% isn't compounding, it's of the base amount, so the same poundage increase every month.)

Just being weightless is useless, as I'd need additional force to accelerate myself in some direction or other, rather than being blown around by the breeze. Choosing 0.1 g as my minimum acceptable acceleration would require an NP force of 170 x 1.1 = 187 pounds. I'd need to increase my NP force by 187 / 98 = 1.9. In other words, it'd require a 90% increase in NP force, which would take 18 months.

An acceleration of 0.1 g is 1 m/s/s. In other words, in every second I'd gain about 2 miles per hour, which is pretty pathetic! Using v = u + at, after a minute (60 seconds) I'd have a speed of 0 + 1 x 60 = 60 m/s, which is about 135 mph. That may sound impressive, but unfortunately that's using every shred of NP force to lift and propel me, with none left over to use as a windshield. Lying horizontally on a rug of NP-points so I'd be flying headfirst would still produce a lot of wind resistance. A skydiver dropping vertically can get up to about 300 mph under a 1 g acceleration before reaching terminal velocity due to wind resistance. My acceleration would be 0.1 g, so one-tenth as much. My terminal velocity would therefore be squareroot(1/10) x 300 mph, or about 95 mph. Call it 80 mph to allow for non-ideal conditions, such as my pockets acting as little parachutes. Nice, but hardly Superman territory, especially because turning corners would be a LONG, SLOW process. Plus my acceleration would look pathetic to any observer. For example, in the first ten seconds I'd cover only fifty yards. I could cover that distance in half the time running - so I should take running starts to fly, sprinting and then leaping forward into the air, making sure I got an NP-rug under me in time!