Chapter 247: Mark's a Genius at Understanding Females

Sunday, June 19, 2005 (Continued)

When Carol and I arrived back in the study, the parents were talking about the mansion-buying AGAIN - was there no end to it?

They stopped, letting me say, "Carol's game has finished. It served its purpose and Carol lost the mood when she and I started talking normally..."

"Thank you VERY much for it," interrupted Carol. "I had a GREAT time. That was the first time I've been able to do that, and it was even better than I'd imagined. Especially thank you, Mark. You talked everyone into it."

I reused my earlier joke, "Just part of being a good big brother, sweetie. It's a challenging job, but I enjoy seeing you so happy."

^-- To the parents I said, "We've come back up to let you know the game is finished and to see if you have any questions before Carol and I go back down to talk about her day with the Cuties?"

Mom said, "I should have dozens of questions, but for the life of me I can't think of any that need to be asked. I must be in shock, because this development should be crying out for all sorts of reactions. What I do want to do is apologize for my failures as a mother..."

"And mine as a father," added Dad.

" ... We let you down by not trusting you and by refusing to make a decision..."

"Mom, what part of your training to be a mother prepared you for a child like me? Of course you're going to make mistakes being a parent. I figure about one thousandth as many mistakes as I make being a child..."

"It's hard to see you as a child anymore. Your maturity and knowledge is exceptional."

"SOME things I do well, but some I do very badly, just like anyone else. My scheme to earn some easy money from a casino didn't work out quite so easy, did it?"

#7: <To put it fucking mildly!>

#1: <Yeah. Sorry about that, I should've chosen another example.>

Julia defended me from myself, "That was EVERYONE'S scheme. Dad, Mom and I all added to it. You wouldn't have done it without me pushing you."

"I wouldn't have done almost anything without you pushing me, Julia. I can't take credit for the successes and blame you for the failures. Thank you for your defense, but my point is that I could've EASILY pulled the plug on that scheme had I judged it more intelligently.

^-- "To use an example that's much better. I was initially EXTREMELY doubtful that I could do third and fourth year college courses. Possibly not do them at all, let alone in the timeframe Prof and Vanessa were talking about. I was very embarrassed about OSU spending money on me, about Prof's getting excited about my potential, and things like that. Vanessa made the point that they didn't mind if I hit a limit to my math ability, just so long as I tried my best. As I understand parenting, trying your best also applies to moms. So don't beat yourself up about something you've hopefully already learned the lesson from, Mom. We'll find out whether you've absorbed the lesson the next time I do something incomprehensibly bizarre. Which I figure probably gives you until midday tomorrow, at my usual rate, haha.

^-- "That's another very good reason I should have some sympathy for you, Mom: keeping up with the changes I keep throwing at you is not easy."

Dad said, "That's partly my fault though. I don't help Fely."

"That's partially true, but Mom doesn't help you help her either. When there's some sort of mini-crisis occurring, and you do try to speak up, Mom usually blasts right over top of you after you've gotten barely half a dozen words out. You're both going to have to work on your contributing more."

Julia giggled, then added, "Boy! You're getting GOOD! I don't know your parents well, but I could see you hit a bull's-eye with that. He's impressive, isn't he?"

Julia wasn't exactly being tactful, but fortunately Mom and Dad didn't take exception to her statement. Which was actually an incorrect statement, since all I was doing was paraphrasing 3B's Vanessa from the huge argument we'd had with Mom over the pipeline scheme (the argument where Carol had asked for a gun to kill herself with). I deflected Julia's compliment, "Not really, Julia. It doesn't take much intelligence to see something when you've seen so many examples of it.

^-- "Changing the subject; if you don't need us, can Carol and I get back to the hot tub please? I'll use my genius to guess that you might be able to occupy yourselves talking about mansions, haha."

Mom said, "We were thinking of going home. We shouldn't leave Donna with her friends for so long, and you've given Steven and me more things we need to talk about. For the second evening in a row, I might add. It's very challenging being your parents."

"Even after I've relieved you of the responsibility for managing your daughters' sexual development? You sure you're not getting lazy, Mom?"

"I SURE don't feel lazy. You keep pulling the rug from under me so totally that I'm busy trying to get my balance again. Something you said just concerned me though. Why did you say 'your daughters' rather than 'Carol'?"

"I'll leave you to decide whether you've learned the 'Trust Mark' lesson well enough, when I tell you that I meant both of them. I wasn't particularly conscious of it, but I was including Donna too. When I asked about showing The Boys my light blobs, that was part of an idea I have to manage Donna's sexual development, so she's in my thoughts and got included in my comment."

Mom stridently declared, "Mark! I'm STRONGLY of the opinion that Donna's FAR TOO YOUNG to have anything to do with sex! She's only 12-years old, for goodness sake!"

"I am ALSO strongly of the opinion that Donna is far too young. I'm planning to delay her having sexual activity, not bring it forward. Your automatically assuming I was going to push her the wrong way makes it official, Mom: you have NOT learned to trust me.

^-- "The reason I want to use light blobs as part of my plan is because I can create an EXTREMELY POWERFUL impact on her with them, to hopefully use it to delay her from trying to have sex for several years. I wouldn't take the risk of showing light blobs to The Boys and Donna unless I was VERY concerned about Donna's wanting sex too early.

^-- "And by the way, Mom, you're currently MIS-managing Donna's sexual development. You're trying to manage it in the right direction, but you're doing it badly. You're trying to hide sex from her. For example, if Donna's watching TV and there's anything at or beyond heavy kissing on, you change the channel or send her from the room. I could give you plenty of other examples of what you're doing, but I'm sure you know.

^-- "Because she's the youngest of the family, so undeveloped and hasn't reached her menarche yet, you're treating her like a baby. She's not. She's been experimenting with sex with other girls for at least a year or two already. Nothing emotionally or physically serious, but there's been quite a lot of playing around. She's in lots of girls' sports teams, so has had plenty of opportunity for experimentation.

^-- "You need to stop hiding sex from her, and start talking to her about it sensibly. How's she going to learn the right attitudes to it, if you won't discuss it with her? And you need to do it SOON, because she's just starting to become interested in boys. You know only too well how aggressively direct and impatient Donna can be once she sets her mind on something. It would be far better for you to teach her the right attitudes in advance than to find yourself fighting blocking actions against Donna once she's determined to have sex. Donna has a VERY unsympathetic response to being blocked from something. I suggest you get Dad to help too. Donna will be impressed to have Dad talk with her about sex, especially because it's the guy side of things she's becoming interested in."

Mom groaned, "Oh God, you've done it again." | Julia giggled. | Vanessa, Prof and Carol just looked very happy and proud.

Carol added, unnecessarily as Mom had already accepted the truth of what I'd said, "Mark is totally right, Mom. Donna is starting to get interested in doing things with boys and you do avoid talking to her about sex. You were much better with me when I was that age."

#8: <Probably because Carol's lovely breasts had started growing two years before that. It would have been hard to miss Carol's need for sex education.>

Dad said, "I'm starting to think we should get up each morning and ask our fifteen-year old son what parenting we should do today."

"Obviously Mom should cook roast chicken more often. Less important things I'll let you know as they occur to me. Seeing I'm on a roll that I'm never likely to equal again, I'll take advantage of it by making a small request. You can go home whenever you wish, but can Carol and I stay the night here please. Partly because Carol and I have that gossip session outstanding, which we'll both enjoy, but mainly because Carol needs to start spending a lot more time with Julia, including sleeping here. That's regardless of whether I'm here or not. If I am, I'll sleep in the study obviously.

^-- "Carol's successfully interacting with Julia and the other girls Carol will meet around Julia and me, Carol's management of the Cuties, the decorating idea, and other things I'll send her way, will give a huge boost to her self-confidence and happiness over the next few months. Of those, getting involved in Julia's and my social scene is the most important because it'll give Carol a much better idea of how she compares to 16-year old girls, because she currently thinks she's worthless compared to them."

^-- I looked at Carol, telling her, "You're going to be very, very happy in a few months, sweetie."

I'd expected her to disagree, as 3B's Carol had been in denial about things like that at the start of her three-way relationship the Julia and me. This Carol had a different opinion though. She said, "Yes, I know. You're looking after me."

This Carol didn't automatically hug my arm whenever we were in the same room like 3B's used to, and this Julia currently was, so Carol and I were standing apart. Not for long though, as I opened my spare arm to invite her in.

Carol added, "I've already been much happier recently, but today's been incredible. YOU'RE incredible!" Then she started crying, because that's what girls do when they're very happy. The logic behind that escapes me. It's not as if girls don't know how to express themselves, because they're always expressing themselves about touchy-feeling stuff. I didn't have a hanky, but Carol had a towel, so she'd be fine. I didn't think the tears would last for long anyway.

Poor Mom was looking pretty shell-shocked by now. (I've never seen anyone who has been shell-shocked, but I somehow knew they looked like Mom. Funny how that happens). I said, "I've got some good news and some bad news for you Mom. I'd ask you which wanted first, but I suspect I'd better start with the good news, as you look rather frazzled." (It's like "shell-shocked".)

^-- "I don't think I'm ever going to hit you with so many things at once again. I'd kind of accumulated a backlog over the last month, and they all came out now. From now on my bombshells should come individually. Some of them might be big, but at least there'll only be one issue to think about at a time.

^-- "My being so unusual is bound to keep throwing up extremely unusual changes, but many of them won't be your responsibility, so you won't have to make decisions about them. Like when Prof first got very excited when he worked out that I could do a bachelors degree in one year. Then early in our hospital stay I told him I could study even faster and he worked out I could do two degrees. And most recently I think I can actually do three. Those things are very exciting for Prof - and for Vanessa and Julia too, come to that - but they're not developments that you need to worry about. My frazzling people will often be spread around, plus I'm increasingly able to take responsibility for my own actions.

^-- "There is a little bad news to think about. You're still going to have to make unusual decisions in the future. Some of them will probably be extremely unusual, and you might only have a short while to think about them before a decision is needed. That means you'll have to get better at meeting decisions head-on and handling them well. I know Vanessa and Prof are both extremely disciplined when it comes to decision making. They're teaching me a great deal about how to make decisions better, and I'm sure they'll be happy to teach you too, if you ask them." I REALLY hoped Vanessa and Prof 'helped' Mom with her decision over whether to permit the three-way marriage.

^-- "That's enough speech-making from me. Can I assume that Carol and I are staying here tonight, so we can go back downstairs now please?"

Mom probably looked even more frazzled than when I'd started trying to help unfrazzle her, so that hadn't worked too well. She did manage to say, "I don't think I could say no. There's so much going on I don't know what to think."

"Good. Not saying no is an EXCELLENT attitude in a mother. Thanks, Mom. Don't worry, you'll soon catch up.

^-- "Come on Carol, let's get a T-shirt of mine for you to wear in the tub. It'd be terribly inappropriate for you to be naked with your brother."

"Haha. Yeah, and I wouldn't want anyone else to see me either. I'm a VERY modest girl, haha."

"Julia, do you want to join us in the tub?"

"Yes please, but start without me. I'll be down in a few."

Carol and I went to Julia's bedroom for a T-shirt, then down to the tub.

^

After Carol and I left, the parents and Julia had the following discussion.

The first part of the discussion can be quickly summarized by the following from Julia, "Oh my God, he's AMAZING! A couple of months ago he was completely blind to problems until they were already smacking him in the face. When he had to make a plan to fix a problem, he had no idea which direction to go in and a total lack of confidence in going anywhere. He used to beg me to tell him what to do. Now he's thinking months or years ahead, seeing problems, inventing solutions, planning how to do them. Whatever his plan is for Donna that involves light blobs and The Boys, he thought of it all himself. Delaying Donna's getting into sex is hardly his responsibility either, so he could easily have passed the problem onto you, Felicity, but he's happy to plan something major because he cares for Donna. He still hasn't told us what the plan is; all he's done is check with us that it's okay to show blobs to The Boys. He PREFERS to think about it himself. A couple of months ago he was incapable of any of that. I don't want to be mean, Felicity or Steven, but he hit the target perfectly with every criticism of you. Plus he caught me not listening properly to him earlier too. Those weren't lucky guesses! It is SCARY how fast he's learning!"

Everyone agreed with everything Julia had said. Mom especially agreed that it was scary. They discussed me and the issues I'd raised.

Julia added another point a couple of minutes later, "Felicity, when you assumed Mark was intending to encourage Donna's having sex, you walked right into a thoughtless mistake. We heard Mark's explanation about why he wanted us to treat Carol the way he suggested. He'd obviously put a great deal of careful thought into understanding Carol, and in deciding how to handle her needs in a way that was best for Carol. He didn't once say anything about it being fun for him. He wouldn't be thoughtless, uncaring or selfish about Donna, but you were thoughtless about him. If there's one thing I've learned today, it's that when Mark speaks, it'd be a very good idea to THINK about what he's saying."

Vanessa corrected, "And LISTEN to him, Julia. That's what you need to learn." Julia had left that out because she was busy concentrating on telling my mom not to block me from doing what I wanted to do (in effect). Julia was using this opportunity to prepare Mom for the discussion that was going to occur when the three-way marriage came up.

"You're right. There are TWO things I've learned today: to listen and think carefully when Mark's talking. Especially because so many of the things he says sound bizarre at first. It'd be a very big mistake to react without thinking.

^-- "I probably shouldn't, but I can't resist adding something else. Mark told me about something he's intending to do when school starts again, and it totally blew me away. He's already got a speech written in his head that he's going to stand up and give in all his classes about a week or two into the school year. He recited it to me, and it's the most incredible speech I've ever heard. He's going to stand up and tell his classes how much he loves his sister Carol, and about her sexuality. I know that sounds weird, but believe me, it's going to be AWESOME! Every girl in the room is going to be bawling her eyes out, and the boys are going to be shamed into behaving properly toward Carol. Carol's status in high school is going to leap upward. The girl that inspired Mark's profoundly sentimental declaration of love is going to have enormous attention and respect. Every girl in school is going to know who Carol is, and is going to know that Carol's a wonderful person.

^-- "I'm sure you're wondering how Mark could possibly stand up and talk about Carol like that without it being a disaster for Carol. It's going to work wonderfully because he's only going to do it after he's prepared the ground. When school restarts he's going to do something first, then quite a few of the kids at school will react in a certain way, which he'll then use to do something else. THEN everything will be ready for him to give his speech. He's planned it several steps ahead, even all the way through to having his speech already written. You may be impressed by what Mark did for Carol today, but it's only the first of many steps! You heard him say that he thinks Carol's interest in sexual embarrassment will decrease as her self-esteem increases. He's got several steps and the most incredible speech I've ever heard already prepared for next year at school. He's thinking way ahead!

^-- "I just remembered that Mark started treating Carol very differently right after he and Dad escaped from the kidnappers. From the first moment he saw her in the hospital he was far more focused and loving with her. I'm sure what Mark did today started back then.

^-- "The time Carol told you about when Mark and I teased her in his bedroom, Mark was totally in control. He knew exactly what he was doing and why. He wasn't testing Carol, or checking to make sure that his thoughts about her sexuality were correct. He knew what he was doing. How many boys know so much about girls? Not only does he know, but he's perfectly happy planning out what's going to be happening to Carol's evolving sexuality several steps ahead.

^-- "I don't know what happened to Mark when he was kidnapped, but it was something MAJOR, because he's leaped so far ahead it's mind-boggling."

Prof said, "I don't know what happened to him either. There was nothing to see, of course. We were locked in the chairs the whole time, so nothing physical happened. But clearly something very profound happened mentally. It's reasonable to expect facing death to change someone, but Mark's changes go far beyond any imaginable consequences of that." Prof pointed to my eight-screen computer system, explaining, "He could 'only' - ha-ha - read two screens at once before we were kidnapped. Now he can read eight with his eyes closed. That's the level of change he went through. I don't know where to start in attempting to describe that. To call him 'unique' is a ridiculous understatement. He's not a unique human; he's superhuman in a category all by himself.

^-- "It's going to be a mighty interesting experience being in Mark's life, as well as being an incredibly important job. We ALL need to be very careful with our decision-making; there's a lot more at stake than ordinary issues such as whether Donna starts experimenting with boys this year or next. The fate of the world isn't going to be affected by when Donna loses her virginity, but it's almost certainly going to be turned on its head by Mark."

Mom glumly said, "We're not up to the task. Nothing..."

Vanessa interrupted, "NO ONE is up to the task, Felicity. How many mothers have raised a superhuman before? You do the best you can VERY carefully, because there's a lot at stake. Being careful is the point I suspect Julia was heading for."

"Yes, that's right. I was showing you all the thought and selfless care Mark has put into looking after Carol, so Felicity's not taking any care at all before responding to Mark's saying he'd been thinking about Donna's sexual development was very unfair to him. Two months ago I had to push Mark hard to get him moving. Now I'm not keeping up with him. I imagine Felicity thinks the same way?"

"You can say that again!" agreed Mom unhappily. "It's a very uncomfortable feeling to be so inadequate."

"There's no point in worrying about that," advised Vanessa. "A year ago you easily had all the motherhood bases covered. Two or three months ago Mark started maturing extremely rapidly, and now there are some things he's better at than we are. At the rate he's improving, there's no way even the World's Best Prepared Mother could keep up with him. He's going to leave us all behind, so don't worry about not being smarter than him. Instead concentrate on contributing as best you can. There's still a great deal he needs to be taught yet, and even if he somehow learns all of that, he's still going to need emotional support and love. He's in danger of having a very lonely life because no one else is going to be on his level..."

"Oh dear, you're right."

"Yes. It's going to be almost impossible for him to find someone he can open his heart to. The importance of Julia's role in his life is diminishing already, because of how fast he's learning. Julia very smartly worked out very early on that that'd happen, but it's still going to be a large blow to her ego when he's a much better leader than her."

Julia commented, "I didn't realize that day was coming so quickly, until this conversation. Fortunately I've already worked out that when Mark gets so much better than me that his development is no longer my project, then I'll change to doing things FOR him, rather than TO him. He'll need loyal followers who can carry out his plans for him. He can't be everywhere at once, so that's what my role will become." [[Julia underestimated me greatly.]]

Prof commented, "You're smart to have worked that out, but it'll still be interesting to see how your ego handles not being in charge anymore. There are going to be times when that's going to frustrate you, especially if Mark insists on doing things differently than you would."

"Yeah, don't I know it! What scares me is that he's learning so fast I might not be able to help him in time. I thought we'd have several years before we got involved in big projects, which would give me plenty of time to learn to be a good helper for him. But it's going to take me two more years just to finish school and God knows what he'll be involved in by then. I won't have learned anything about the adult world, and he'll be world famous by then. I could easily get left behind."

"Tsk, tsk, Julia," tsk'd Vanessa. "Regardless of how superhumanly smart and successful Mark becomes, you'll always be managing ordinary people. If you can't learn what you need on the job, then take a few years off to do an MBA or whatever other learning you need, then go back to working for Mark. He's already thinking months or years ahead for Donna and Carol, so he's not going to forget about you. At the most, all you have to do is tell him about your concern and have him think about it. By the time it starts mattering in a couple of years, Mark will probably have your entire career planned out. Put yourself in his hands and trust him, which is something you don't really have a choice about."

"You're right. I'm not used to thinking like that."

"No. That's your ego again. I'm looking forward to seeing Mark turn the tables on you. I'm sure Prof and I will be in for some educational experiences too.

^-- "Felicity and Steven, I have two pieces of advice for you. First for when you're faced with an action of Mark's, or a proposed action, such as his requesting we sexually tease Carol or his commenting that he had plans for Donna's sexual education. When anything like that comes up, I advise you not to pass judgment immediately, but to ask 'Why?' Maybe he's being a bonehead about something, or maybe he's thinking ten steps and five years ahead of you. In either event, there's no harm in taking a few seconds to ask why. Judging by his recent learning rate, I expect you'll find yourself agreeing with him far more often than not.

^-- "I'll go so far as saying that you should probably not refuse him anything unless you have found out what his reasons are, have thought through them carefully, and you know he's wrong. In which case you should teach him what he's got wrong, rather than simply refusing permission. In other words, if you EVER find yourself saying 'No' to Mark, then you should stop and have a very careful think about what you're doing, because it's quite possibly wrong for reasons you haven't thought of. I don't much mind if Mark makes the occasional mistake anyway. He'll learn better that way, and it wouldn't be the end of the world. Which I just realized is an amusingly appropriate expression, because maybe in ten years or so a mistake by Mark could be the literal end of the world. I think I'd MUCH rather he learned from his mistakes now.

^-- "My second piece of advice, is to worry much more about his emotional future than his actions. Even if you gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the future, he's not going to turn into a spoiled, selfish brat. Today has brought two things home to me: Mark is learning and maturing far faster than his previous rate, which I was already impressed by, and his emotional future is correspondingly bleaker than I had realized. He's not just a better version of a human being, he's on an entirely different level. He's got no possibility whatsoever of finding a life-mate. It's not even worth him looking, because there isn't any such person..."

"I assumed he'd marry Julia," objected Mom. "Despite the other girls Julia lets him play with, their relationship seems to work very well."

Julia's objected, "EVERYTHING you just said is SO wrong I don't know where to start! I don't LET him play..."

Vanessa cut Julia off, "Stop, Julia. You're too worked up; leave it to me."

Julia subsided, letting Vanessa turn to Mom to say, "Your statement is factually incorrect, Felicity. Julia came to me for advice about how to push Mark into dating other girls. It was me that invented and named the pipeline scheme, so you're plain wrong. But that's not the main issue.

^-- "Julia wants to get angry with you for maligning her man. When Mark said he'd been thinking about Donna's sexual development, your immediate reaction proved that you didn't trust him, AND that you assumed he wouldn't care about what was best for Donna. Just now you accused him of being selfish, inconsiderate and greedy in the way he's treating Julia, by somehow getting her to 'let him play with other girls.' I also know that Julia has previously told you that Mark's dating other girls was her idea and the she wanted him to do it so he learned more about girls, so your statement that she lets Mark play around was calling her previous explanations to you lies. You're doing a very good job of insulting people right and left."

"Damn right!" declared an insulted-looking Julia, in support of me, via her mother.

"Felicity isn't as insulting as she seems to everyone, Julia. Her assumption that Mark somehow coerced you into letting him play around doesn't stand up to even a fraction of a second's thought. Nor does her assumption that Mark was intending to encourage Donna to have sex earlier than she should. A fraction of a second's thought tells anyone that he loves Donna and would NEVER do anything selfish at the expense of what was best for her.

^-- "Felicity, your unthinking assumptions imply you have beliefs about Mark's motivations and methods which are laughably inaccurate, so you can't be thinking about Mark at all. It's clear that your 'unthinking assumptions' are actually 'unthinking prejudices'. Your comments can't be about Mark, so they must be about you. You've got a problem with trusting men's ability to be sexually faithful, don't you?"

[[Thereby proving that this Vanessa was as smart as 3B's. That wasn't as smart as I gave her credit for though, not in this case anyway, because Vanessa had received several other clues from Mom. The two moms often phoned each other - behind their children's backs, because mothers do that sort of thing - during which Mom had several times raised the issue of my faithfulness with Vanessa, such as when Ava had joined Julia and me.]]