Chapter 256: The Aquatic Center; Several Conversations

Monday, June 20, 2005 (Continued)

The last few chapters have featured Savannah more than she deserved. Despite all the words I've written about her, I really only spent a few minutes talking to her. I spent longer talking to some of the other individual girls, but they were generally straightforward and honest, so needed little comment here. They'd come here to meet me, were happy to be in my company, and were perfectly happy to make no pretense about it. The sight of my body in its unfortunately choice of swimwear had knocked any idea of subtlety out of their minds.

I actually had several very enjoyable (i.e., non-Savannah) conversations. Following are several of them:

^

I chatted with Carina for a while, initially about what she'd told her parents. I'd asked about that because her mother had known about Julia's being my girlfriend.

Carina had told them pretty much everything, especially about Julia, the pipeline, and a GREAT deal of very nice stuff about me. Her parents had made sure Carina knew she was playing out of her league, and not to get her heart broken. Carina sincerely asked me, "Please don't break my heart, Mark."

That was tricky to respond to, especially as I was mostly playing with all these girls.

The best I could say was, "I won't lead you on, or lie to you. Your maturity reminds me of something else too. I'm doing my best to treat everyone with the respect they deserve. Some don't deserve much, quite frankly. While some, such as you, deserve a great deal. I'll try not to break your heart, but the only safe way to guarantee that is to avoid each other, which I don't think either of us wants."

"You want to keep seeing me?"

I couldn't see this conversation going anywhere good, so I said, "You're getting into fishing territory now. For fairness reasons I can't give personal feedback to girls in an active pipeline group. But the fact that you're still active says something about what I think of you. I won't say any more than that." And then I thought of something more to say (which happens so often you'd think I'd learn not to say the previous sentence). Some of my minds had been thinking about how nice Carina's parents were, and one of them had an idea, so I added, "Your mother suggested dinner at your place. I have nothing against people cooking me nice dinners, and your parents seem very nice, so maybe we can do that..."

"Good! I'll tell Mom."

"Hang on. There are some rules. First, that everyone from your pipeline group has to come or it won't happen, which means it'll have to be at least two weeks away to allow Esther and Aaliyah to get back. It's outside the normal rules for the pipeline system, so it'll only happen if EVERYONE from your group agrees that it should. I want you to have a secret ballot so any girl can blackball it without any pressure on her.

^-- "Second, it won't count as a pipeline date, so I won't be eliminating anyone afterward. Third, I'll invite some extra people. Likely Julia, my parents, maybe Julia's parents. Carol too probably, and maybe my younger sister Donna if the rest of my family is coming. I don't want it to be focused on me all evening, okay?"

"Sure. That sounds good."

"It's quite a few people. It might be better to go to an informal restaurant..."

"I'll ask Mom. That's okay, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's fine. Obviously if we go to a restaurant we'll pay our way."

"I'll call Mom and let you know."

"There's no hurry. You've got to find out whether everyone in your group agrees first, and I want that done in a way that they can anonymously blackball it if they fear it might give you an advantage. Don't bother your mother until you know it's going to happen."

"Okay." Carina went away to talk with her fellow pipeline group members.

Fifteen minutes later she returned, asking, "How does Saturday, July 9 sound?"

"It sounds wonderful. What for though?"

"For dinner at my place?"

"You need to have a secret ballot with the rest of your group and talk with your mother first."

"I have. We didn't need a secret ballot. I understand why you mentioned that, but we're all eager. Esther and Aaliyah have been looking at your photos for the last half an hour, so 'black' are the last 'balls' they're thinking of, haha. You can call them if you like, and everyone else is here so you can easily ask them."

I looked at the rest of the group. They were hanging back, but eagerly watching the conversation. By the looks on their faces, there wasn't much doubt of what they thought. Nonetheless I could still make myself look good.

I led Carina over to the rest of Group 1A, asking them, "You're all happy that we have a dinner party at Carina's home?"

I received a chorus of enthusiastic agreements.

"At the next pipeline date we have, four of you will be eliminated. That's a sad fact of the way it has to work. If Carina isn't eliminated, have you thought about how jealous or angry you might be because she might've got an unfair advantage."

Another chorus telling me that they didn't worry about that, trusted me, etc.

"I can see you all seem enthusiastic..." another chorus, " ... Nonetheless, it is VERY important to me that I be as fair and moral as I possibly can. I want each of you to privately whisper in my ear sometime during today, saying either 'white ball' if you AGREE to the dinner party, or 'black ball' if you wish to VETO it. Black means VETO, okay?"

"Yes. We got it."

"Friendships are more important than a dinner party. I can see you all get on pretty well together, and I don't want to upset things between you by agreeing to anything that could cause a rift. You need to be careful of that too."

"It's just a dinner party." | "We want to spend more time with you." | "We're not worried." | Etc.

"Okay. I still want you to whisper in my ear though. Carina, I need to check with Mom before I can agree to July 9."

"Can you call her now please?" asked a very eager Carina, with five other girls looking just as eager.

It was clearly pointless to mention that it was three weeks away, because that'd be using logic on excited girls, which is the second most stupid thing a guy can do. It might save your life, so I'll tell you that the most stupid thing a guy can do is to use logic on angry girls. That's REALLY stupid AND dangerous!

"Okay, give me a few minutes."

Unsurprisingly, I wasn't carrying my cellphone inside my Speedos, as I could've done inside a decent pair of board shorts, so I went to my bag to fetch it.

First I checked with Carol. "Carol, remember when Carina's mom dropped her off, she suggested a dinner party at her place?"

"Yeah."

"That looks like it'll happen now, and they've suggested the Saturday before your birthday. I'd like to do something special for that, but I can't plan anything until I find out how Mom and Dad are going to react to you-know-what. They might ground me for life, or God knows what else, so I can't plan anything yet. But do you mind if we book the Saturday for the Durham's dinner party, presuming I'm still alive then?"

"That's fine. We can do something for me anytime. There's no school, so on the 12th would be fine, or the next weekend. Go to the dinner Mark; don't worry about me."

"You'll be coming to the dinner too. You're pretty much going to be coming to everything in my life from now on."

Carol had a moment; a frustrating one unfortunately, as she couldn't express herself fully in public. She threw her arms around my neck to give me a hug and to whisper, "I love you," in my ear.

"Me too, sweetie." Mostly to disengage Carol, I continued with, "I'd better call Mom to check July 9 is good with her, because I want Mom and Dad to come too. It'll be good for Mom to see me get along well with parents of other girls I'm dating, because Mom's too quick to assume nasty jealousy. Carina's parents would be particularly good for Mom to meet."

"Good idea."

I called Mom at her work, giving her a brief summary of the event, then asking her whether July 9 would be okay, especially that it wouldn't clash with any July 4 stuff that Mom might have in mind.

Mom responded by ignoring my question to ask a succession of her own. Apparently my brief summary had been too brief and way too summary. I don't know why Mom couldn't have been satisfied with my, "The parents of a girl I'm dating want to have a dinner party for us."

I did my best to explain briefly. The briefly part failed again, especially after Mom knew it was a pipeline girl's parents, and the rest of her pipeline group would be there too.

#8: <For God's sake, don't even THINK of joking with Mom that we had a threesome with Carina and her mother. Mom doesn't have a sense of humor at the moment.>

I eventually had to say, "Mom, I ONLY want to know that July 9 doesn't clash with anything you've got planned. I've got three weeks to explain all the relationship politics to you." I resisted joking that it might take that long.

Mom asked, "What about Carol's birthday?"

"I've already asked her. She's happy to celebrate that on the 12th or the following weekend."

"The 9th should be okay then. I'd like to understand better what to expect from the girl's parents, but we can talk about that when you get home. Will there be other parents there?"

#4: <We'll be on the phone to Mom until the Center closes.>

I rolled my eyes at Carol, while I told Mom, "I don't know. I guess that'll depend on whether Mrs. Durham invites them. I'll let you get back to work, Mom. Sorry to take so much of your time, bye."

Carol started chuckling the moment I hung up.

"Yeah. Anyone would think we were trying to solve world hunger, or something. I'll tell Carina it looks like it's all on."

Carol came with me. I told Carina, "There don't appear to be any clashes, so July 9 is looking okay so far. I've got something big happening in a few days which might upset it, but I'll let you know if it does."

"Like what?" asked Carina.

It was probably best not to say that my parents might either ground me for life or kill me, when they found out that I wanted to marry my sister, including having sex and eventually babies with her. So I went with, "Family stuff. It doesn't matter for now."

"We saw Carol get very happy when you were talking before?" fished May (one of the 1A group).

I was debating whether to mention Carol's birthday, when Carol mentioned it by saying, "It's my birthday a few days later. Mark was checking I didn't want to do something on the 9th. He's VERY considerate."

"We can easily change the date if you want?" offered Carina.

"Please do NOT do that, Carina! Then I'd have to call Mom to explain all over again. Mom's the sort of person who likes to know what's going on, why, with whom, how often, what their shoe sizes are, what they had for breakfast, etc. She was especially concerned to understand the situation because the dinner party is with the parents of a girl I'm 'dating' - sort of - who's obviously not Julia. The 9th is PERFECTLY fine for the moment, okay?"

"But you said you might have some 'family stuff' that'd change it, right?" checked Carina.

"Yeah. That's a separate issue. I should be able to let you know about that by the end of the week."

"So probably the 9th, but we won't know for sure until the end of the week?"

"Yeah, that's probably right."

#4: <It occurs to me that we shouldn't have mentioned the uncertainty. It's just complicating the situation.>

#3: <But I didn't want them to do something that'd piss them off if we later canceled.>

#4: <What could they do two weeks ahead that'd matter? I think this is another example of us going too far to be considerate, that we actually end up causing more nuisance than if we'd kept our mouth shut. It's not a big deal this time, but let's downplay it if we can.>

#7: <I was thinking about asking if any other parents would come, but probably best to see if Mom and Dad kill us first.>

To change the subject, I said, "Remember you each have to whisper in my ear before the dinner is officially on."

"We can do that now," Victoria suggested. "If you stand a few yards away and we'll take turns whispering to you."

I moved as requested, and they did exactly that. I particularly enjoyed Kaiya's 'whispering'. She bent over my ear, putting her tits into contact with my shoulders, then rubbed them back and forth.

After several rubs, I said, "I thought you were going to whisper in my ear?"

"You've got your way of whispering; I've got mine. Mine's more fun, haha. I've forgotten the ball colors. What was the color that includes my sucking on your cock?"

I'd heard the term "blue balls" before. I was tempted to invent a joke about it, but I doubted Kaiya would know the expression, and I had no idea how to explain what it meant.

#5: <Maybe we have "Blue Moons" because of some sort of galactic lack of orgasm?>

#1: <Maybe that's what caused the Asteroid Belt. A REALLY explosive cum, haha.>

Chuckling in response to Kaiya's and my own internal jokes, I replied, "Sorry, but I can't think of a good joke to make about that. There are others waiting, so I'll be boring. White is in favor of the dinner; black vetoes it. What's your vote?"

After a couple more breast rubs, and a giggle, I got told, "White."

When all the present 1A members had told me "White," Kaiya came back, leaned over, and started rubbing her tits on my shoulder again.

After several enjoyable seconds of rubbing, and no sign of a whisper, I asked, "Did you want to change your vote?"

"No. I wanted to rub my breasts on you."

"Haha. Would I have any credibility at all if I tried to tell you off?"

I'd intended it as a joke, but Kaiya answered, "You might. None of us can understand why you haven't got hard even once. There are sexy girls all around you, hanging on your every word. Some of the sluttier ones have even rubbed their tits on you and offered to suck your cock, if you can believe that! We didn't think any boy could stay soft. We were wondering if you take drugs to make your body so fantastic, and they affect your, you know?"

#1: <Damn this body. Whose is it anyway?>

#8: <People think we're on drugs, are homosexual, or are a full-time, full-of-himself, narcissist. Some people probably think we're all of those.>

#7: <We don't want to do stop the go-softs, because we don't want Julia to know how much control we've got. So how else could we stop their suspicions?>

#5: <It's damned hard to prove we don't take drugs.>

The best we could come up with was, "My blood and urine were tested for drugs when I won the 10k running race, and those tests all came back clean. I sleep at Julia's place as often as not, sometimes not going home for several days in a row. There's nowhere at Julia's where I have the privacy to hide anything. Not even my underwear drawer is sacrosanct, for God's sake. I doubt I've got privacy at home either, because moms are damned good at sticking their noses into everything. Also, I have no interest whatsoever in having a sports career. I hate jocks and all they stand for, which is pretty much only themselves. I have no motive, no opportunity, and no means either, because I don't know the first thing about getting drugs. That destroys every one of the three things the police need for a case against someone.

^-- "I just realized that I should've mentioned that I spent a month in a hospital with the FBI and cops all over the place, plus doctors running literally thousands of tests on damned near every function my body performs, because dehydration can badly damage every single organ. Yet everybody's been telling me I look better now than before I was kidnapped. I couldn't have taken a cough drop without the doctors knowing about it. Prof wasn't even allowed any coffee for weeks, because the stimulating effect of coffee would've upset some of their tracking of his organ functions, that's how precise they were being.

^-- "If you or any of the others want to be treated like pieces of meat rather than with some respect, feel free to parade back and forth in front of guys who can't control themselves. If your self-worths are so shallow that you need a cock to get hard to feel good about yourselves, then you're not the sort of company I want. I'm going to talk with Julia now."

I got up and stomped off. It was a safe bet that Kaiya wasn't going to be admiring my ass, especially as she was running alongside me to beg my forgiveness.

I let her beg two or three times, then I interrupted her to say, "I know you're no worse than all the others, Kaiya. I'm sick of this topic and I'm in a bad mood from being widely believed to be a criminal, so leave me alone for a while. You can spend the time telling the others to shut up or leave."

#1: <I thought that went pretty well, don't you?>

#5: <It should be a while before that topic comes up again.>

I stomped over to Julia. She was sitting with another bunch of girls, and I wanted to make sure this issue got buried.

Julia and some of the others saw me coming. I must be very good at stomping, or maybe it was the expression on my face, because even before I'd sat down, Julia asked, "What's the matter?"

"Stupid, nasty-minded, know-it-all, girls is the matter. Apparently a lot of them think I'm on illegal drugs just because my body looks good and I'm too much of a gentleman to get hard whenever they walk past. They take out their pathetic insecurities over their attractiveness by trying to rip me down by spreading bad rumors."

There were too many people watching me carefully for me to wink at Julia, so during my diatribe I'd been lightly rubbing her nipples through her swimsuit, mostly to let her know that I was fine. [[If you can't guess the rest of my reasons, you need to go back to the start of my autobiography and read it again, keeping your eyes open for small, subtle clues such as, "I love breasts!"]] I was also amused to see how uncomfortable the "stupid, nasty-minded and know-it-all girls" around us were.

"The idiots!" declared Julia. "I hope you red-carded them all?"

"I was VERY tempted to. If for no other reason than their being so incredibly inconsiderate and rude. How could they gossip about my doing illegal activities when I'm walking around among them? Why on Earth would they make the effort to come to the Aquatic Center to see me, only to participate in nasty gossip like that? What do they think they're trying to achieve?"

"Who cares? If any girl thinks you're that stupid and a criminal, red card her. Don't bother wasting your time trying to understand where her head is at. There are hundreds more girls lining up to be with you; hopefully less self-destructive ones."

"You're right. I think I'll go have a swim to cool off. I'll go inside to use the diving boards, so don't worry if you don't see me for a while. I want to get away from everyone."

"Good idea."

As I was getting up, Carol came rushing over, asking, "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine thanks, Carol."

"Kaiya said you were REALLY angry?"

"Yeah I was. Still am actually. I hate it when people who're feeling insecure about themselves try to feel better by ripping someone else down. It's selfish, nasty and inexcusable."

Julia said, "Go have your swim, Mark. I'll bang their heads together for them."

"I don't think most of them would notice. They obviously don't use their heads much if they think I'm stupid enough to get into drugs. Please don't be hard on Kaiya. Obviously she was guilty of the same stupidity, but at least she was honest enough to talk with me about it face to face rather than gossiping cowardly behind my back. I probably should've blown up at the others, rather than Kaiya."

#6: <Because she wants to suck our cock, right?>

#3: <You must be psychic.>

Julia said, "I'll tell them off collectively, and I'll make sure Kaiya knows you're blaming her the same as everyone else, but she's getting credit for being up-front about it. Okay?"