Chapter 78: Educational and Mansion Planning

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 (Continued)

"Mark!"

"Sorry Prof, what was that?"

Prof asked, "We set your study up for you to study in it, so why would we get grumpy at your doing so?"

"Huh? Oh, that's right. If I woke you up at 2:15 every morning to let me in. Wouldn't you lock your frontdoor before you went to sleep?"

"Of course, but you don't need to wake us. We'll give you a key and you can come and go as you please. You might as well have a key now, so I'll give you our spare as soon as we get out of the pool. You're family now, Mark."

"Oh. I never thought of having a key and your letting me come and go as I please in your house. It seems such a big step."

Vanessa asked, "A bigger step then letting you into our daughter whenever you please?"

Julia butted in with, "I'm listening to your answer and you'd better not say that a pile of timber and concrete is more important than me, or I'll call Katelin back and tell her I've drastically reduced my opinion of you."

"I wouldn't want you to have to break off the important conversation you're having with Carol, so I'll totally concede the point. Sometimes I talk complete nonsense, don't I?"

"Yes, but you look good bare-chested so that makes up for it." Julia didn't waste any more time talking to me, immediately resuming her more important conversation with Carol.

Vanessa said, "Talk with your parents about it, Mark. We suggest you sleep at your house until you wake up, then come over here to study OSU's courses or stay at your home to study your schoolwork, whatever is best for you. If you come here, you can have breakfast with us so you can chat with Prof if you need to. If you have a comprehension problem it shouldn't take long to clear it up. Prof should keep abreast of how you're going with that anyway, so a quick progress report each breakfast would be ideal. You'll need to keep some changes of clothes here is all, otherwise it's very simple."

Julia said, "We're going clothes shopping Saturday. We'll make sure there's enough for both locations."

Prof said, "Let me know if I need to build some more closets, haha."

"Thanks, Daddy, I will. Probably not for Mark, but Carol and I could do with some more space. Haha, just kidding. We'll last for MONTHS yet."

Prof said, "{Groan}. I think we better add some more money to our business target, Mark."

"That's funny, I keep having exactly the same thought."

Prof, more seriously, said, "Talk with your parents tonight if you can please, about doing a couple of Math courses at OSU and studying here at night. We really want to get that moving quickly."

"Will do, Prof. How come you keep saying 'a couple of courses'? How did you arrive at that number? I thought one would be better?"

"Let's try for two and cut back if it doesn't look like you'll be able to finish them in time. That'd be easier than starting with one and adding another one in a couple of weeks."

"I'll read up on the first-year courses in the material you gave me, then talk with Mom and Dad about it."

"Thanks. So that takes us to the end of the school year. What are your educational plans for over summer?"

"{Groan}. You're merciless. I don't want to go to any summer school, that's for sure."

"No, I don't think that's very likely. But why not do some more Math courses at OSU?"

"But I thought it closes down over summer. Don't all the lecturers go on vacation, and things like that? I'm sure they won't want to come to work just to teach me."

"I could teach you here. Teaching Math courses is kind of my job, you know?"

"Of course, sorry. Maybe because I've never seen you at work, I don't have a mental image of you as a teacher."

Andrew said, "I know what comes next."

The Boys and their parents laughed. Julia was too busy.

Before I could ask, Prof said, "Andrew is aware that I'm looking forward to showing you around OSU. Maybe showing you off a little too, I must confess. It will be good for you to see the place, get a feel for how it works, and most importantly, meet some of the staff that'll be helping you. It'd be best if you could take some time off school so you could have lunch with us too."

"If you want me to visit OSU so much that your family all laugh about it, then I should agree. 'All of your family' except Julia, who's too deeply involved in the critical issue of what Carol should wear tomorrow."

Julia pointed out, "It's a much more complex situation than normal. Everyone's going to be looking at her and first impressions are very important."

"I'll never understand so please don't waste your breath when Carol needs you to use it to her benefit so much."

"Haha. That was very diplomatically put."

"Thank you. Let me talk with your father now. My education is almost as important as Carol's dress."

"Now you're being silly."

#1: <I'm too scared to ask her to clarify the ambiguity.>

I said, "Prof, I'll talk with my parents tonight and I imagine we'll agree to try to whiz through the two courses like you mentioned. I like math, so even if it's a lot of work it should be fun. I'll let you know their answer tonight if it's not too late, or else tomorrow morning.

^-- "Julia wants me to give my speech several times tomorrow. She seems to think that's important, and I want to stop her being hassled so much. I guess I could skip school for a while any day from Thursday on. Having the car and my license is great, so I can easily pop over to see you whenever is suitable for you."

Prof replied, "Good. I look forward to hearing from you. Let's leave the discussion about your summer education aside until you've seen how you like the other two courses?"

"Yes please. Let's definitely leave summer unplanned. One of the things I like most about summer is it doesn't contain any school. It seems wrong to even think about studying then."

Julia looked up out of her huddle with Carol, telling everyone, "He's going to be busy this summer."

#2: <We are? I kind of like relaxing over summer.>

#3: <We're not going to have to work in our usual summer job this year either, not if we can win $5 million in four minutes in Vegas.>

#2: <That's true. That'll give us a lot more time to be lazy in.>

#3: <With Julia and Prof in our life?>

Julia snuggled back into my lap, prompting me to facetiously say, "You've got her dress picked out already? That didn't take long."

Julia answered, "Not yet. We just can't discuss it anymore while we're in the tub. When we get out we have to go upstairs and get Carol to try some of her new clothes on."

#3: <You'd have thought they'd already know what they had in their closet.>

#4: <Let it go. It's just a price we have to pay for having girlfriends that are girls.>

Carol said, "I'm sorry, but I'm nervous about meeting Julia's friends."

I could see that she truly was nervous. "Why? If anyone should be nervous it should be me, because aren't they all mainly coming to see me? That's what Julia says, and I couldn't care less, so why do you?"

Carol stated, "YOU'VE got nothing to worry about! It's me that has to worry about what impression I make. They're all 16-year old girls and I'm only thirteen. I don't want to reflect badly on you or Julia."

"That's IMPOSSIBLE, sweetie. There is NO chance of that happening."

I spent a while reassuring Carol that she was beautiful and that I was sure everyone would love her no matter what she wore. We ended up agreeing that after she got out of the tub, she and Julia would go upstairs and she'd try on some of her new clothes so they could continue their discussion about the critical clothing choice.

Vanessa said, "Just be yourself, honey. Everyone here loves you and that matters far more than a bunch of girls who just happen to be in Julia's classes. I wouldn't trust their judgments too much anyway as they spent nearly the whole year in a class with Mark and not one of them realized how wonderful he is, so how silly are they?"

"{Giggle}. Pretty silly."

Julia clarified, "Most of the girls will be there because they're so impressed with Mark, especially his speech about how much he loves you. They'll certainly be very nice to you. The last thing they want to do is make Mark not like them. As nervous as you might be about meeting them, they'll far more nervous about sitting with Mark. Most of them have never socialized with him before, which they must be kicking themselves for now."

Carol agreed, "Yeah. I didn't think about that. I can't imagine how nervous I would be if I was having my first chance to socialize with Mark. {Giggle}. That thought cheers me up."

Julia added, "Here's another thought, can you imagine how much trouble poor Katelin is having picking out her clothes? I bet she dresses VERY carefully tomorrow."

^-- Carol laughed, while Julia added, "It's not fair that Katelin's the only one who gets advance warning of their lunch with Mark tomorrow. I was going to invite them to lunch during class tomorrow, but now I think I'll call them tonight. That way they can ALL worry about their clothes. It'll be fun to see what they all wear tomorrow. They'll be dressing to impress Mark."

Carol was looking less worried and the conversation drifted onto other matters, most of which were the Williams' internal family stuff: how Andrew's research was going, Vanessa talking about a problem one of her co-workers had, etc.

I largely tuned out. I remembered that I had ignored Julia's bikini last time she'd worn it in this tub and wanted to make up for it this time. Unfortunately, it's socially awkward to grope your girlfriend in front of her family. Even counting her as my wife didn't help me feel any more confident about doing that only inches away from Vanessa. I did the best I could, rubbing my hands discreetly over some of her non-sexual areas, hugging her.

Julia responded to my attention by snuggling in even more, and "Mmm'ing" me.

I whispered, "I love this bikini. What a pity I can't grope you because your family is here."

Julia said, in a normal, or even slightly louder, conversational voice, "That's easy: don't worry about that." She reached back, and in a second her bikini top was draped over the side of the tub. "No one minds if Mark gropes me, do they?"

I didn't know whether I was hoping to be spared the embarrassment of having to do so publicly, or given permission to go ahead. As it turned out no one objected, so Julia grabbed my left hand and put it on her breast. Saying, "Use your other hand on Carol's breast. It's not fair she misses out."

I was trying to deal with the embarrassment this caused me when Andrew said, "I'm not sure whether I should suggest Sophia brings her swimsuit on Friday. She normally does, but I'm not sure how she'd handle scenes like this."

Julia said, "Mark won't sexually touch Carol in front of your girlfriends, of course. But if Carol's in the pool, she WILL be naked. That's a house rule."

Carol gave a little shiver, while Robert answered, "I've got some friends who'd be very disappointed in me not inviting them around, if only they knew that, haha."

Andrew said, "Carol's naked beauty is not my main concern. I'm more worried about how Mark's body puts us bookworms to shame. Even with a swimsuit on he looks very impressive. I saw how many helpings he had at dinner, which makes me wonder where it all went because it doesn't look like there's even room for a stomach in there, not to mention how his shoulders and muscles look. Robert and I are slugs by comparison." They didn't look bad at all. They weren't fitness freaks, but they obviously kept themselves in reasonable shape. Andrew continued, "I thank goodness that he doesn't strip down like Carol. If he's as impressive under his shorts as he is everywhere else, I'd really feel inferior."

Julia said, "I don't really know whether he is or not, I haven't seen any other guys up close. How about you stand up, Mark, and..."

"NO! I will not do that. I'm completely ordinary, and even that's more than everyone else needs to know."

"Okay. I was just curious what everyone else thought."

"I'm EXTREMELY UN-curious what anyone else thinks."

"Okay. I know I'm not going to make any progress in that area. I'll change the subject then. Carol, is Mark touching your breast yet?"

"No, he hasn't moved."

"Just grab his hand and put it on. Sometimes he needs some help." Carol did as instructed.

Andrew said, "That's another thing that worries me about inviting Sophia into the tub. You're surprisingly sexually aggressive, Julia, and I don't know how Sophia would handle seeing you behave that way."

"I'm only having fun with my lovers, and I like that we can behave like this in front of my family. I think that's very healthy, but I can tone it down if you want."

Vanessa said, "I also like that our children are relaxed around us and each other. Mark will get used to it, and Carol's motivations are good for her too. Andrew, ask Sophia whether she'd be uncomfortable. Give her some examples, like Julia kissing a naked Carol in the pool. Same with Ashley, Robert. If it appears either girl would be uncomfortable, reassure them that Julia will ease up. Making guests uncomfortable is unacceptable. Mark is family now, so he gets no such protection from us, haha."

The conversation turned to other matters. Prof asked Vanessa whether she intended to go mansion shopping again this weekend.

Vanessa answered, "No, we'll wait until closer to the time."

Prof's question had reminded me about something that he'd mentioned during our roulette discussion, so I asked, "Prof. When we were talking in your study you said something about our new house needing expensive renovations. Like what?"

Vanessa answered, which I should've expected. Imagine me being so silly as to direct my housing question to a male! Vanessa said, "The main issue is to do with bedrooms. We need one bedroom for you and your wives, two more for the two pairs of parents, three more for Donna and the two boys, which makes six in total. Plus we'd like to have three studies, two of which will probably need to be converted bedrooms. There are several large homes available with six or more bedrooms, but none of them have three master bedrooms, one for each of our three married couples, 'couple' being a triple in your case. I'm sure there are many suitable houses around the country, but not in Corvallis, as the local idea of what constitutes a mansion is quite modest. So we either have to get a house built from the ground up for us, or we have to extensively modify what's already there."

[Those of you used to big-city prices might find the idea of mansion costing only $1.5 million silly. In a town like Corvallis prices are MUCH cheaper than big city prices, and it's even cheaper in neighboring towns as Corvallis is overpriced by county standards. The median Corvallis residential property is very close to $200,000, so $1.5 million is a sevenfold increase, which buys a substantially better house. Another way of comparing it is to ask what would a near-new house on twenty five acres of lush land (grass, trees, and even a small lake), be worth in New York City? That's easy to estimate because Central Park's land has been valued at $529 billion. It's 843 acres, 25 acres being 3% of that, so would be worth $16 billion. I'll ignore the construction cost of a house! In the area around Corvallis but within a very easy commute of it, a quality home on 25 acres costs somewhere between $1 and $2 million, including the house. As I said, it's MUCH cheaper!]

Vanessa continued, "All the reasons we had for getting such a house, security being the main one, argue for our moving into the new place as soon as possible. Not waiting a year until a new one is built for us, or waiting many months for a major renovation job. We initially thought about moving into an existing house and getting workmen to add two master bedrooms either vertically as a new top story, or horizontally as a new wing. We thought we might be able to live there while the alterations were going on, but we decided that was too insecure. There'd be too many workmen walking around who might see something that would cause us trouble.

^-- "So what we've decided to do is buy a mansion that is suitable for all of us to live in, but ignoring you three. Ideally it'd already have two master bedrooms, or have a layout that we can easily create a second master bedroom out of by knocking out the walls between two existing bedrooms and a bathroom, then rebuilding them in a way that created a master bedroom. That'd be easy, and shouldn't take much more than a week.

^-- "For your accommodation we're thinking of buying another fairly small, single-level house somewhere - not the land, just the house - putting it on a truck and moving it to our new property, where we'd attach it to the mansion. We were thinking that if the mansion was on a hill, which most of them are, we could dig your house into the hill in front of the mansion so that the top of your house is level with the mansion's floor. That way none of the mansion's rooms would have their views blocked, just the back rooms of your house, which we'd try to make unimportant rooms. We could level the roof of your house and build an outdoor entertainment area on top of it: a barbeque area, outdoor hot tub, etc. That's our rough idea. When we get the money we'll employ a good architect to help us choose which mansion to buy, and to do all design work that follows.

^-- "We thought that'd give you plenty of privacy, as you and your friends could come and go easily, Carol could cook meals for you, and you could live as independently as you wanted. I imagine you three would sleep, study and privately entertain in your house, but spend most of the rest of the time upstairs in the original mansion with us; for meals, to be around the rest of the family, etc. It's the best of both worlds for you, which seems entirely reasonable as it's your money that's paying for it all."

I was COMPLETELY blown away by the image that created! Flabbergasted! My flabber had never been more gasted. Julia's was well and truly gasted too. She was as excited as me, possibly even more so as she was squealing a lot more than I was. I was holding my squeals down to a sensible level, whereas she was showing no restraint at all.

Carol was also thrilled, squeezing my arm hard and whispering (compared to Julia's volume), "I would LOVE to live like that. I could be your really truly wife in our own home. That's SO wonderful!" Carol was rapidly overcome and started crying in happiness. I took it in my stride. I'm getting used to girls crying whenever they're in the hot tub. It must be the bubbles.

Julia demanded of her mom, "This is incredible. Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"You never asked."

"HA! You knew I'd LOVE to know this. You should've told me."

"So you could have all the fun telling Mark and Carol the good news! I enjoyed myself more telling all three of you together. Look at how happy Carol is."

Carol certainly was, and through her tears told everyone, "I can be his wife."

Vanessa said, "You certainly can, my dear. We'll also make sure there's a room set aside for being the nursery next to your bedroom, for your babies."

That finished Carol off, and for the next several minutes she was out of it. Scientifically I doubted it, but I almost thought the water level in the tub rose from the volume of her happy tears.

When things had quieted down, by which I mainly mean Julia, Prof added, "So you can see why I was allowing a fair bit for renovations?"

"No kidding! A whole separate house worth of renovations. That's incredible."

"There are still many details to take care of. That plan isn't set in cement, if you'll excuse the expression. There are building permits to worry about, maybe it'd be quicker to build your place from scratch, or from a kitset frame, rather than so heavily modifying an existing house. The architect we employ could very easily suggest ideas that change things considerably, but now you know our general intention."

I spent a few minutes basking in the pleasure of their general intention, while we discussed some peripheral issues, such as where to park the ridiculously large number of cars this combined family would have, eight including one for Julia.

A problem suddenly occurred to me, "Where are we - the three of us - going to live until our house is ready? That will take several months, won't it?"

Prof answered, "At least several weeks, yes, depending on how much renovation it needs. You'll stay in one of the master bedrooms in the mansion. If there's only one, you'll stay in that. If there are enough bedrooms in the house we'll all find a place to sleep, but if not we'll lease one or two fancy mobile homes, and park them immediately next to the mansion, and the overflow can sleep out there. I'm half-tempted to myself. It might be more comfortable than in a too-small bedroom in the house, and it'd certainly be more fun. I imagine that it'd even be quite romantic, having our own little nest like that."

Vanessa hugged Prof to her, saying, "I agree. I think it'd be lovely for a few months over summer. I'm sure it'd be quite practical, as it'd only be for sleeping, and the occasional cuddling session."

Prof's eyes twinkled, "Maybe not so occasional. I feel younger just thinking about it."

Before Prof could feel too young, I said, "I'm not comfortable pushing you out of the house. The three of us could easily sleep in the mobile until our house is ready. That way you can set up your bedroom just once, and not be moved around again. That makes a lot more sense."

"Normally I'd agree with you as we'd normally expect the youngsters to 'rough it', although how rough it'd be to live in a luxury mobile home parked a couple of yards away from a mansion is a moot point. The reason you'll be inside is that this move is all about your security. A mobile home is too exposed and vulnerable. People could sit outside our property with a long lens and photograph you and Carol going into it together, and they could pick up your sounds just by pointing a long-range microphone at any of the windows. It's not arguable, Mark. Your group has to be inside, and your room will be properly secured from surveillance, even better than we've done to Julia's room now. I am sure that many of the conversations you'll have in your room will be highly secret.