Chapter 57: Is No Sister Safe?

Friday, April 15, 2005 (Continued)

Julia decided there was no time like the present, and rode her bike to my TK distance limit and back again, reporting that it was just under 0.1 of a mile away. Maybe 0.08 or 0.09, she guessed. I hadn't thought about the poor precision of her odometer, and a car's odo' wouldn't be any better either. Call it somewhere between four and five hundred feet. Not exactly good science, but it'd do as I had no need to measure the distance more accurately.

The girls made us a snack and we sat on one of the living room sofas eating and chatting.

Julia mused at one point, "Mark, remember that you didn't want Carol to bother getting the ruler from our study so you could measure my top?"

I nodded.

"You said it was an idle whim and not worth disturbing her, but it was your flying the ruler to the door and then explaining how TK worked that reminded you of the experiment you intended to do. The experiment taught you some facts about your ability that you didn't know before. So it was worth disturbing Carol, wasn't it? Especially as you might've discovered something important in that experiment."

I conceded, "You're partly right. It wasn't so much Carol getting the ruler that got me to experiment, as my explaining how TK worked to you afterward. That suggests that I should explain my abilities to you more."

Julia said, "Perhaps, but I don't want us to know more about them. They're yours and it seems best to keep them secret. I can add another point: you need spare time for experiments. By having Carol do things for you, like your chores at home, you'll have more time for thinking and experimenting. Carol should take over doing all your chores."

Carol jumped in, and said, "Yes! I'll start doing that as soon as we get home. If Mom or Dad tell you to do something, just tell me. No, that's silly. I'll talk with Mom and Dad and get them to tell me in the first place. They already know I'm serving you, and that'll work a lot smoother."

"Haha. I can't imagine Mom and Dad letting me out of my chores. Good luck on that!"

Carol firmly expressed, "They'd better! I'll make sure of it. I am your SERVANT! It's exactly what I should be doing."

Oh, she was serious. So I thought about it myself. No doubt HAVING to do chores was a pain, but it made me feel quite uncomfortable to allow Carol to do all of mine in addition to hers. It was definitely very unfair.

"Umm, I think our parents give us chores in part to teach us responsibility. I should learn that."

Julia snorted, which I've learned is an ominous and sure sign that I'm about to lose an argument. "Yeah, you're such an irresponsible boy, aren't you? Plus if your life lives up to its potential, I think you'll have PLENTY of opportunities to learn all about responsibility. That's a non-issue." In other words, Julia believed I'd lost that argument.

I regrouped and tried again, "More often than not I won't have any experiments to do, so I might as well do my chores. Otherwise I'd just be sitting around feeling guilty for doing nothing while Carol is doing my work."

Julia snorted again. It was going to be one of those discussions where I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a single point. "First, leaders have to be rested and mentally alert for when decisions are needed, especially for when a crisis develops. Your rest is just as important as your experiments.

^-- "Second, get over the guilt. You'll employ people and leave them to do their jobs. That's how it works. If they're working when you're relaxing, so what! You will end up having heaps of people working for you. Are you going to feel guilty when a single one of them is working and you're not? You could even have people in different time zones, so when would you ever sleep? Feeling guilty is just plain silly."

Oh dear, I'd progressed from "a non-issue", to "just plain silly". In desperation I tried, "Sometimes I like doing chores. Servicing the cars with Dad gives me some time with him, or washing the dishes with Carol or Donna gives me a chance to talk with them. That's nice. I wouldn't like to just sit in my room all the time."

"Yes, I agree that's important, especially for you."

#3: <We have a choice. We actually won a point so we can either shut up, or we can find out why "especially for us.">

#1: <You know what we have to do.>

#3: <Sigh.>

"Why especially for us?"

Julia said, "No, not 'us', just you. You need to..."

#3: <Eek! I said "us". Fortunately it looks like Julia thought I meant me, her and Carol. Phew.>

" ... stay in touch with the common people. That's one of the problems with elevated leaders."

"What are you talking about? 'Common people' and 'elevated leaders' is weird language! You've been using a lot of that recently, especially about leaders?"

"That's because I've been doing a lot of reading about leadership in the last week, to help me plan and prepare for your future. With your abilities - by which I mean your IQ and niceness mostly, since your TK has to be kept hidden. Not unless you set yourself up as some miracle-performing, fund-raising, TV evangelist, and I PRAY that doesn't happen! Haha."

^-- Julia enjoyed her little joke for a second, then carried on, "Out in the real world you'll develop into something dramatic, but relatively normal. Whether you create another Microsoft - that's Robert's favorite example by the way, he'd REALLY like you to do that - or are a major research scientist, or a world-leading politician, or something else equally impressive, then you'll certainly have a large team of people working for you, so leadership is a critical skill. I'm learning about it so I can help you overcome your being FAR too passive and non-commanding. Later on we will employ experts to teach you these things, but for the first few years I'll be doing it."

#1: <Did any of you know Julia was thinking about all this stuff, let alone studying it? Because she sure has been studying it. It's been coming out of her mouth all day, and she's been making good sense about it too.>

#3: <I had no idea. I can't imagine where she finds the time to do all this stuff. Organize the wedding, seducing Carol, spending time with us. She's impressive, isn't she?>

#1: <I bet she's got a study schedule REALLY well organized for herself. Can you imagine how well she manages herself? Haha.>

#2: <So what do we think of what she said?>

I asked, "You've obviously been doing a lot of studying about leadership. I've heard you mention it three or four times today, and you've been right in what you've said too. How come I never knew about this before? If you've been studying it for a week or so, I mean, how come you never mentioned 'leadership' before?"

Julia answered, "We've been too busy discussing other things. How to seduce that gorgeous girl sitting on the other side of you, for example."

Carol said, "I could've saved you a lot of time then. All Mark had to say was, 'I want you.' Haha. Oh, and also, 'Take your clothes off and lie on your back.' That would've been good too. Haha."

Julia laughed, "Yes, we know, but where was the fun in that!..."

#3: <Did WE know that? I thought Carol would slap me the first time we tried to touch her body.>

#2: <I'm sure Julia could have told us, but as she'd say, "Where was the fun in that?" I think Julia enjoys her little games. Look at how she was with our plans for Donna? And when I say "our plans for Donna", they're really Julia's plans. We just get the fun of carrying them out. Julia's a born schemer. Thank goodness she's on our side!>

#1: <MOST of the time.>

#2: <Good point.>

Julia was still talking, " ... and today we've had all day to talk about other things, so it's come up a few times. I've told Mark many times in the past that he has to learn to be commanding. It's just that today I've been explaining myself more because we've had more time."

I asked, "Why do I have to be a leader? You keep saying this over and over again, but I don't see why. I like just having the two of you. That's all I need to be happy."

Julia rhetorically asked, "Isn't he sweet? Completely wrong, but sweet..."

#2: <I already knew we were wrong. That happens every time we disagree with Julia. It's nice that we're "sweet" though. It's an improvement on just being wrong.>

Julia explained this particular instance of me being wrong. " ... Mom and Dad made this clear to me a week or so ago. Dad pointed out that in just over a year you'll almost certainly be leaving Corvallis. That'll be the public start of your career, in whatever direction you want to go. Mom pointed out that successful people are all leaders, and we all agreed that you were very deficient in that area, and that I'd study up and help you develop."

#3: <And here I was thinking we were still a kid! This family LOVES planning. You can see where Julia gets her attitudes from.>

I said, "I've still got some questions. Two biggies being: WHY do I need to be a leader? You still haven't explained that. And if I do need to be a leader, why don't I do the study rather than you? That would seem to make much more sense."

"Both are easy to answer. Mom said you need to be a leader because great achievements come from teams. One person cannot do much alone. Dad's favorite example is Einstein. Other than some very slow correspondence, he worked almost entirely alone when he developed his relativity theories, but that was in the years before 1916. That's so far ago it was almost the Dark Ages! Everything is far too complex these days so no one has worked like that for nearly a century.

^-- "Mom insists you have to build a team, and she loves my idea of the core being our multiple marriage. How big would Microsoft be if Bill Gates did all the work himself? No matter what direction you go, you will need lots of people to take care of all the time-wasting stuff or the jobs that are outside your expertise. Just like Carol's going to be doing your chores. If you invent something that is worth billions of dollars, are you going to do all the manufacturing, marketing, accounting, etc.? Of course not! You'll employ people and they'll be part of your team. The better you are at leading them, the more of your potential will be achieved, and Mom and Dad are very eager to have your potential achieved. They're very excited about that. Have I explained it well enough?"

I said, "You've explained it pretty well, but I still can't see why I have to have a team and be a leader."

"In that case I haven't explained it at all. Let me try another way. Think of anything really fantastic in today's world. Let's say the internet. What was the name of the person who invented that?"

"Umm. I don't know of any name."

"Exactly! If one person had been responsible for the internet, you'd be hearing his name every day. Maybe one guy had the initial idea, but he certainly didn't create it himself. Sometimes an individual can have a breakthrough idea, but it's usually on top of years of teamwork, and always requires more years of work from more teams of people to make it work. Can you name one single person who has INDIVIDUALLY achieved something incredible in the last several decades, without a large team helping them?"

I tried. I thought about categories, like people who had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but they all must have had a team to get their message out. Any sort of political process must need lots of people. What about scientific advances? The only person I could think of was Stephen Hawking (or Steven? However he spells his name, I can't remember). But I think he works in a team too. He even needs people to help him live: feed him, dress him, etc. And although his work is brilliant, from what I'd heard he hadn't actually discovered anything 'useful'. Knowledge of how the universe works is interesting, obviously, but hardly relevant. Not to mention the rather amusing mistake I knew he'd made, as he'd missed the W-Dimension.

The category of "movie stars" popped into my mind, which was pathetic. They ACT heroic, but they aren't themselves. And even if they were, they have huge teams of people to make their movies. The 9/11 firemen-heroes came to mind, but what better example of a team could you think of? I was stumped.

"Julia, I'm stumped. I can't think of anyone."

Julia was not magnanimous in victory, she pressed her point even stronger. "Even if you could think of ONE example, it wouldn't disprove my point. One guy might get lucky, but that doesn't change the fact that teams are far more likely to achieve far greater success than individuals."

I nodded, "Okay, I accept your point now. Everything is too complex these days for one guy to do it all."

Julia said, "Yes, exactly. Sorry for pushing this so much, but it's stressing me out quite a lot. I hadn't really understood this before my parents pointed me in this direction, but leadership is critical. Bad leadership doesn't just prevent success, it can cause major disasters, whereas great leadership can create amazing results.

^-- "I get very excited about how much you could achieve, and very horrified about how bad things could get if we mess-up your life in some way. Getting it right is stressing me out. That's why I was so happy and relieved that you ordered Carol not to sacrifice herself for me. That showed that you are starting to become a good leader, and I now understand how important that is. Anyway, that's just me. I know I get carried away sometimes, and I'm a bit carried away about leadership these days."

#2: <She certainly does get carried away, but she didn't answer about why we don't study it ourselves.>

I asked, "If you're so worried about me being a good leader, why are you studying it rather than me? Shouldn't I be doing the study?"

Julia answered, "It's tempting. I'd like to be able to pass it over to you, but we don't think so. Not yet anyway. Mom and Dad say you're still a kid. They don't mean that in any derogatory sense, but you have to get out and do kid things, otherwise you'll grow up weird. Psychologically weird, I mean. Obviously you're weird in awesome ways already. It's better that I learn, and then give you lessons as good opportunities arise."

I disagreed. "That doesn't sound right. First because you're a kid too. No disrespect intended either. Second, what you describe is inefficient: that you learn it all, and then pass extracts on to me. It'd take less total time and effort if I learned it directly."

Julia disagreed with my disagreement, "Both your arguments have the same flaw: you're giving my time the same value as yours, which is obviously not true. My learning about leadership and passing on lessons to you does take more total time than if you learned it yourself, but it takes less of YOUR time. It's the same reason Carol will be doing your chores. It doesn't matter whether she'll be doing them faster or slower than you. Carol's and my job is to serve you.

^-- "If you had ten people working for you, but you could do their jobs twice as fast as they could, does that mean you should do all eleven jobs? How can one man do eleven jobs even if he's twice as fast? What if you had a hundred people? A thousand? Delegation is part of leadership, and you'll just have to get used to the fact that the person doing the job might be less efficient than you. The important thing is that it lets you get on with whatever you want to do, whether that's work or play.

I was forced to admit, "I don't like the idea of your treating my life as more important than yours, but I know I've got no chance at all of convincing you otherwise so I'll not argue that point. By the criterion you're using, your method is better."

Julia was magnanimous now, "Good. You're slowly learning. When your team gets even larger you will see that you have to let go and let them do their work in their way. How many people are in your team now, Mark?"

"Two, obviously. You and Carol. And I can't believe how wonderful it is to have both of you. I'm so lucky." I hugged them both.

"Don't try to divert the conversation into lovey-dovey stuff. Not quite yet anyway. Let's finish this, it's important. Two is wrong. Try again."

"Ah. I'm pretty sure it's two. Donna hasn't joined yet, and I'm not even sure I want her to. I assume you want a whole number, like two. You don't want 2.1 for part of Donna, do you?"

"Haha. No, I don't want to carve Donna up. A whole number is what I want. If someone is helping you, count them. Carol and I don't help you all the time, sometimes we do things for ourselves, but we still get counted as one each. I'll save you some time, and tell you that two is wrong, but while three is still wrong, it is better. Why three, Mark?"

"Not Donna?"

"No, not Donna. I'll give you a little clue: the three people are sitting on this sofa."

"Oh, you mean me! I wasn't counting me. That's a bit mean of you. Obviously I know I'm part of the team, I just didn't bother to count me."

"You are not 'part of the team', you are the REASON for the team. You're not just a member of it, you're the MOST IMPORTANT member of it. You should be counted before anyone else. You just demonstrated that you are still excessively self-effacing.

^-- "I know you understand that point, so moving on. Even three is not correct. How about my family? They help you a lot, spend a fair amount of time thinking about you, discussing you, doing things for you. Do you think you could have gotten the DMV to let you try for your license without Dad's help? Mom explains a lot to me, and even The Boys helped this morning by taking the time to look at Carol when she was naked. They enjoyed themselves of course, but they still were part of the team that was helping you."

"I agree all of your family have been marvelous. Incredible really. You guys are planning my future and thinking about things that have never crossed my mind."

Julia recited, "It is best to fix problems before they occur." It sounded like a catch phrase, something they said often. I had no trouble imagining it was the family motto, not with the effort they put into planning my future.

I continued, "The Boys set up the study, for example, that will be great, when we FINALLY get around to using it, haha..."

Julia interrupted me to explain why it hadn't been used, "It was only unveiled on Wednesday. I was NOT going to let it be used on our wedding or honeymoon days! Plus tomorrow is 'Shopping Day', which is far more important than study. Maybe we can start using it on Sunday."

I carried on, "Anyway, the point I was going to ask about is that I accept The Boys are part-time members of my team, but you used the example of their looking at Carol this morning. Surely they did that for Carol's benefit, not mine. Shouldn't that make them part of Carol's team?"

"Haha. If anyone else had asked me that question, I'd think they were trying to tease me, but you're serious, aren't you?"

"Umm, yes. Is it another silly question?"

"Yep. First, Carol doesn't have a team, other than your parents always being a team that help raise their children. I'm assuming that's the norm and I'm only talking about leadership issues beyond that. Carol isn't important enough yet. Sure sometimes people help her - she's a lovely person so of course people do - but that's just casual help. A team exists to achieve a sustainable goal of some sort. There is no short-term or long-term goal around Carol. When she starts producing your children we may well employ people to help her because then there'll be an important goal, but that's not yet.

^-- "Second, The Boys looked at Carol this morning for YOUR benefit, not hers. They enjoyed it - what guy wouldn't! Carol enjoyed the excitement it gave her, but enjoyment was not the reason for the exercise. The Boys did it to help Mom understand Carol..."

I suddenly realized that Julia was giving away FAR too much information about Carol in front of her. Fortunately I was facing Julia with Carol behind me so I could wink heavily. That didn't stop her, so I rolled my eyes and frowned to attract Julia's attention to her mistake.

All that happened was Julia laughed then said, "Don't worry about Carol hearing, Mark. Let me finish. The Boys helped Mom understand Carol so Mom and Dad could continue to help our three-way relationship, which exists because it's what you want. Thus it was all for your benefit. So The Boys were on your team then.

^-- "Your interruption wasn't necessary. Carol knows what we do to her. She may not know the exact reasons for everything we do, but that doesn't matter most of the time. I wasn't accidentally divulging something we have to keep secret from her. I prefer not to talk with her about it at the time because that'd reduce her enjoyment, but making sure you understand that The Boys helped you this morning is part of your learning about teams, and that's a lot more important than a little bit of game playing with Carol."

I turned to Carol, and asked, "Did you know what was happening to you this morning?"

Carol confidently said, "I knew I was having fun and getting very excited! Haha. I knew something else was going on. It was too well arranged to be accidental. People don't send a naked girl around the house to do things, especially not sending her to guys! Vanessa kept asking me lots of questions so there was definitely a reason. I don't know what it was and I don't care. It's not important to me."

"It's not important to you why you were made to walk around the house naked? And letting all the guys see you?"

"Nope! I trust Julia and her family. They're very nice people. No one touched me sexually this morning, Mark. Prof kissed my cheek, but only after saying things that prepared me and put me in the right mood for his little peck. That was a sign of parental affection and not sexual at all. He left his study door open so I'd feel safe with him, which was unnecessary but nice of him anyway.

^-- "Vanessa didn't send me into the room with The Boys, the way she made me do with Prof, because I might've found that too scary. Obviously she trusts her sons but she didn't want to scare me. Instead she made The Boys come to the kitchen where she was to help me feel safe. Donna felt completely safe and unconcerned in the tub with The Boys last time when she was topless. They're both gentlemen. How could they be anything else, in this house?"

"Wow. I never thought of any of that."

Carol said, "Nor did I at the time; I only thought of about it now. When I'm playing I go into a kind of Dumb Mode. I'm not really dumb, I just don't want to think about things that spoil my enjoyment. At some level I noticed the, which is why I was so comfortable doing them with the Williamses, but I refuse to consciously think about them. I loved that Julia and Vanessa did that for me, as they obviously put quite an effort into doing it well. It was very exciting and very safe, which was wonderful for me."

#1: <Shall I say it, or do one of you guys want to?>

#3: <Say what?>

#1: <I'll say it then. Listen... >

"I've got a lot to learn about females, don't I?"

#2, #3: <{Groan}.>

#3: <But you're right.>

Julia and Carol laughed, and Julia said, "You're learning. One advantage of your being so dreadfully modest is that you're always thinking you've made mistakes, so you're willing to listen and learn. It's much easier to teach you than an arrogant person, and you ARE learning."

"I don't think I am. Maybe just a tiny bit, but it's a drop in the ocean. Everywhere I turn I see females doing things that I don't understand. It's going to take me years to learn enough for it to be noticeable."

Julia said, "Good, that's what we're hoping. We're looking forward to spending years with you, aren't we, Carol?"

"Too right! I want to be with Mark all my life."

"But I keep making so many mistakes, and keep failing to understand almost anything. That must be a real pain for you two. Surely you want me to learn as quickly as possible, so I can stop being so bad to you."

Both girls laughed again, for quite a long time. It wasn't a good sign.

Julia turned to look square on at me, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Mark, you are already the most wonderfully nice, caring, considerate and loving guy imaginable. That's not counting ANY of your special abilities; that's just your personality. That's right, isn't it, Carol?"

Carol hugged my back and placed her face over my shoulder, so our cheeks were pressing together. She said, "Totally. I fell head over heels in love with him even before I knew he had any special abilities. Other than his IQ improvement, but I didn't fall for him because of that. Smart guys have never appealed to me. I fell in love with him because of his personality. Donna's the same about him. Your parents too. Not out of love obviously, but they're helping him a lot."

#1: <First our being nice IS a special ability. We weren't nice until we had a spare mind and could start seeing the effects of other people being nasty. But we sure aren't going to argue that point with Carol! Second, I'd always assumed Carol started liking us when we got smart because we got smart. I thought she respected our new studiousness, but she said she doesn't like smart guys, so how can she like us now that we're super-smart at school? Super-dumb with girls obviously, but smart at school.>

"Carol, how come you don't like smart guys? And given that I'm doing so well at school, doesn't that contradict your liking me now? That doesn't seem logically consistent to me."

They laughed again. Confirming that my being smart is only restricted to schoolwork.

Carol eventually answered, "Smart guys are usually either socially nervous or arrogant about their intelligence. I like people I can honestly respect. A nervous guy doesn't respect himself and an arrogant guy doesn't respect anyone else, so neither deserve my respect..."

#3: <I'm always stunned when girls trot out those pearls of wisdom, especially because they give the impression that the wisdom is obvious to anyone with half a brain. Those secret classes they go to must have some damned good teachers.>

" ... You on the other hand, I respect so much I could burst. You're awesome in EVERYTHING you do, including earning respect. Not just for your schoolwork and special abilities either. Remember the trick I played on you to get you to compliment me in a way that showed you had watched and understood me. Remember I had written the answer on a piece of paper beforehand?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"You've got some incredible people skills. You notice and remember things about people better than anyone I know. Even tiny little things about what's important to them, what makes them tick, what makes them sad or happy, when they need cheering up, etc. You do it all the time. Look at you and Donna. Until a year or two ago you two had NOTHING in common, except your dislike of each other. Now she thinks you are Mr. Super Wonderful Nice, and you make her squickly, all because of your people skills. She's hardly seen any of your special abilities, so her feelings are all because of your personality."

#3: <What abilities of mine is Donna aware of? I thought we'd kept those away from her. Oh no, I remember now: endurance running and sneaking up behind people. I think that's it. It's getting hard to remember who knows what, with all my family and the Williamses. On this topic though, we don't want to show our TK to Donna, do we? She's too young?>

#2: <Agreed.>

"Carol, Julia, just while I remember to mention it. Regardless of how much we do with Donna in the future, let's not tell her about my TK or anything else special. Maybe we'll decide to one day, but I mean not to tell her accidentally without thinking about it first."

Julia said, "Sure. Fine by me. The fewer that know the better."

Carol said, "I agree about not telling Donna more. It's too important to trust her with. She won't understand why it has to be kept secret."

I said, "If I am so wonderfully good with people, why do you have to spend so much time training me to be better? I feel totally inadequate compared to you two. And with Mom too, when she points out female issues that I had no idea of."

Julia said, "You're not nearly as bad as you think. We explain a lot of ways you could improve not because you're so wrong, but because we're trying to push you to learn much faster than normal guys. I'm sorry that we gave you the impression that you're inadequate in any way. That's TOTALLY not true. You are VERY, VERY adequate, isn't he, Carol?"

"Oh YES! Very satisfactorily adequate, haha."

"I'm pushing you to learn leadership to help make you more assertive. Ideally MUCH more assertive. We'll be pushing girls your way so you can learn more about how sex works. Not the physical act because you're already awesome at that, but how girls operate, the way they seduce guys, the tricks they try, etc. Once you know their tricks, you'll be in control and able to command them better. All these things are preparing you for your future. Because your future is going to be so important, we're pushing you more than other boys would be pushed. We love you and we want you to go a long way in life, so we're starting now. We - my family and I - think that's for the best, don't you?"