Chapter 276: Touring the Mansion

Friday, September 2, 2005

It was a thrill getting home and seeing how much had been done while we'd been away on our honeymoon. Ava had come to meet us too, and everyone was eager to give us the grand tour. [I found out later that Ava had been roped into doing a great deal of work. Not because she had been needed, but because it'd be good for her to learn what was involved in setting up a household. That had been one of the things she'd felt insecure about before the beginning of our relationship, and she felt much less so now. She was proud of many of the things she'd done, and eagerly pointed them out to us.]

The Main House looked great! The moms and Ava insisted there was a huge amount to do yet, but I couldn't see where. So they started listing all the stuff that was missing, "That wall needs a picture on it; we need a rug over there; we don't like the drapes in this room and want to change them; this living room suite is the spare one out of your Upper-House's living room, we're still waiting on the suite for this room;..." They had a LONG list. Every time they mentioned something, I could see they were right, but the place still looked very good to me. It was a LOT better than our old place.

I asked, "How long until you think it's finished?"

Mom explained, "It doesn't work like that. It might take us months to find a picture we're happy with for the upstairs landing, or maybe we'll stumble across it tomorrow. We've got lots of things on order, like the living room suite. Most of them will be arriving over the next week or two, and they'll help a great deal. It's good having two women involved too, because we can get a lot more done, especially because Vanessa is only part time at OSU. But there are still a thousand and one minor details: we don't have enough toilet brushes, the security system needs to be upgraded, we haven't touched the landscaping yet, although we do have a landscape architect giving us some ideas..."

There was more talk - much, much more - but it was all women-stuff so it didn't really worry me. The kitchen could produce meals, my large plate and bowl were in the cupboard, and we had beds, so I was happy. I'll comment on a few parts though.

The two master bedroom suites were both superb. Not only did they have their own en-suites and walk-in closets, but even a little sitting area with a sofa and coffee table that looked out the large windows. The master bedrooms seemed to be at least half the size of the house we'd moved out of, and oozed luxury (I thought). I teased Mom and Dad about it, and they very happily accepted my teasing, obviously as pleased as punch with their new room. It was a VAST improvement over what they'd moved out of.

The two normal-sized bedrooms weren't furnished properly yet. That was Carol's project, and she'd been too busy lying on a beach during the day, and at night having me make sure yet again that her virginity was truly gone. They were temporarily fitted with the perfectly functional, but soon to be replaced, furniture that'd been removed from the Upper-Half of Mark's Wing.

The ground level (kitchen, dining room, etc.) was in full use already, and worked fine. Maybe they'd be replacing the living room suite and changing one room's drapes, but that hardly worried me. I did notice that Vanessa and Prof's study was even better looking than in their previous house, and that'd been very good. The thing that amused me the most was that both their computers now had two decent-sized screens. I teased them, and they freely admitted to having been envious of mine, so they'd upgraded theirs. "We should've upgraded the screens years ago. They're much easier to work with."

I got a surprise when they showed me the basement garage, "Whose are these two cars?"

"Fely's and mine," answered Dad. "I got them last week."

"Good for you, Dad." (They'd picked us up from the airport in Prof's car, deliberately to keep the surprise for now, I realized.)

We talked cars for a couple of minutes, because I actually knew something about buying cars now. Dad hadn't done anything as frivolous as buying brand new cars. They were three years old, low mileage, good, solid, family cars. Exactly the sort of cars I would've expected Dad to get.

Dad gestured to the workshop saying, "But let me show you the vehicle that I'm the most proud of."

"Let me guess, you've got yourself a new riding lawnmower?"

"Yep. It's a REAL beauty. It's in my workshop."

"I bet you enjoy saying that."

"Haha. Yeah I do."

When I saw Dad's new pride and joy, I could see why. "Wow. You only needed to buy one new car. This is a heck of a machine."

"Yeah. The boss gave me a REAL sweet deal. He almost gave it to me. He's worried I'm going to leave now that my son's made me rich, so he's sucking up to me. I can't think of a better way of doing it."

"So how does it run?" We talked riding mowers for a couple of minutes. I knew something about those too, from overhearing a countless number of Dad's conversations about them.

The Games Room was very much the same as at the Williams' house, except with a bigger TV. Then we got to walk through the tunnel. That was a buzz. The doorway into the tunnel wasn't finished - that was one of Dad's jobs, once the excitement over his new lawnmower wears off in a month or two - but the tunnel itself was completed. It was like walking down a hallway, except the floor was very slightly bouncy. It wasn't at all fancy, but it made up for that in the coolness of being a tunnel.

I wasn't interested in the Lower Half of my house. That was unchanged from when we'd bought it (actually there'd been window tinting, improved security locks, new drapes, etc., but nothing fundamental). What I was eager to see was the Upper-Half, so we entered the Staircase Room that joined the two halves together, and I headed straight for the stairs.

"Don't you want to look at your study?" asked Mom.

Something about Mom's voice alerted me. I looked at her suspiciously (it's always a good idea to be suspicious of mothers). She was busy trying to look unconcerned. I said, "I was under the impression that it'd be empty, but somehow I suspect otherwise. I think I'd better have a look."

"{Giggle}," from Ava, which set Donna off too. My suspicions had been confirmed.

What should have been an empty study was anything but, in a SUPERB way. My computers and screens had been moved here, even though I thought the plan was to leave them at the Williams' until I returned. The rest of the room shouted, "REALLY rich man's fantastically luxurious study." Dark wood, gold trims and leather stuff all over the place. Really nice cupboards, and REALLY nice desks (it was a four-person study, although I had much more space than the other three). Julia's computer was set up too, without - I was very happy to see - its frilly pink dust covers. That helped the room considerably.

There was a great deal of shelf space, 99% of which was empty; I'd need it for all my textbooks next academic year. There were expensive leather chairs, a very nice carpet, and a sitting area on the wall next to the stairs, with a four-seater leather sofa running parallel to the stairs, and a couple of two-seater sofas ("love seats") bracketing the coffee table that matched the slate on the floor outside the room.

I noticed that the lighting was very well done, and then I noticed the pièce de résistance, a small shelf with three cookie jars on it; the jars even matching the room's décor. I exclaimed, "Cookies!"

Which caused an outbreak of laughter. Followed by several minutes of very happy conversation while I tried out my chair, the desk drawers, and each of the cookie jars.

"Wow. You guys put some serious effort into this. No wonder you didn't have time to finish furnishing the Main House."

"Seeing as how our being here is all thanks to you, it's the least we could do..."

"It's not 'ALL' thanks to me. I couldn't have earned enough money to pay for those cookie jars without other people's help, especially Prof's. It was a highly cooperative effort. I'm getting chocked up, I think I need another cookie."

They had several more things to tell me about my study, "The pictures are from a gallery in town, and you can easily change them if you wish." There were two masculine pictures of wooden sailing ships in heavy weather, one of them VERY big and impressive, because it was on the wall that went up to the Upper-Half. "The internet got connected a couple of days ago, so you're online now. Give the chair a good test soon, because sometimes what can work for one person can feel uncomfortable for someone else..." and more. They'd put a LOT of thought and effort into this room.

When we eventually got upstairs to my master bedroom, it was somewhat anticlimactic, after the superb study.

Upstairs wasn't furnished, but the rooms were all built. There were only four: my huge master bedroom, a big en-suite, a VERY big walk-in closet, and the second double bedroom. It was difficult for me to visualize what my master bedroom would look like furnished because it was more than four times longer than it was wide, and how the furniture was laid out would make a big difference. I didn't have a clue what Julia was planning, or even if she had started planning yet. I'd previously done some tests to confirm that my sight blob would have the range to allow me to stay in bed and use the study, which it easily would from anywhere in my bedroom, so there were no constraints on where Julia put the bed. Now that we were back from our honeymoon, I expected her to give this room top priority.

The en-suite was the same quality as the one off Mom and Dad's bedroom, which was superb. It was large, and it'd be easy to have six or seven people in the shower (that'd been something we'd specified). I was surprised to see that the toilet was in its own little room (en-en-suite? off-en-suite? off-and-en-suite?)

The walk-in closet was large enough to hold a party in. Thank God Julia is so small, because if she was normal-sized her closet would've scaled up to be bigger than the house it was in.

Dad demonstrated the "secret door". There was a mirror in the closet that, when the hidden latch was pressed, could be swung into what would publicly be called "Carol's bedroom". On that room's side was another mirror, larger than the doorway so it blocked light getting through the edges.

Playing with the secret door let me see "Carol's Bedroom". It was just an ordinary double bedroom. There was already a queen-sized bed in it, which gave us several choices about where to sleep: Carol's Bedroom, the big bedroom in the Lower Half, or the spare bedroom in the Main House.

Mom said, "We assumed you'd sleep in the Lower Half for a while, so we've put all your clothes and other thing down there. There isn't enough closet space, but we've done our best. That'll keep the Upper-Half empty and easy to furnish. While I think to mention it, I'm surprised how many bikinis you own, Mark. Do you wear them often?"