Loosening Up Bk. 02 Ch. 10-14

After the dinner, Kiki directly asked her adult daughter Kat whether she was 'sleeping with' the other men in the Circle. Paul tried to deflect the comment as none of her business, almost knowing what the answer was based on what had been said. Kat simply looked at her mother and said, "Maybe yes; maybe no. My business." She then winked at Paul pretty much confirming things to him. He rolled his eyes.

Sean's parents were nearby and heard the interchange. They looked at their son and waited for some kind of follow-up statement or explanation that didn't come.

Dev and Wendy, like Sean, just stonewalled the direct questions, finally citing their privacy as the rationale for not answering either way. Of course, by saying things that way it left the answer fairly obvious. Fortunately, everyone stayed away from that sensitive subject the rest of the weekend.

Christie just brought her sister up to date on the work at Club Ecstasy, doing videos with Mike and Richie, and then explained her complex relationships with all the men in the Circle.

Clarisse and Mike went off with her parents for a drink at their hotel. She'd hoped to duck the issue completely, but Joanne and Dick weren't having any of that. The two of them got grilled about their lifestyle until they finally caved in and explained that they had joined the Circle as full members. That revelation led to the even greater admission by Clarisse about their involvement in the adult film industry as well as the fashion photography end of things.

Joanne disintegrated into little pieces of angry mother. Dick sputtered so much, Clarisse was afraid he was having a heart attack. The difference in moral values became all too evident in the ensuing discussion. Mike tried to be supportive of his fiancée without incurring physical damage. In the end, her parents left early to drive home and think about things.

Dori didn't wait for questions, but explained about Ty and her longstanding lifestyle and preference for group interaction. Since she was already a bit of a black sheep in her family, the disclosures were not that big of a surprise to her sister. Dori had a family reputation that involved sex and freedom for most of her life.

When Roy's brother put the pieces together and asked the direct question, he got the straight answer. The eyebrows raised, and Stu told him, "Congratulations. The women are outstanding, and the guys are really friendly."

Pam's mother got the full account in the kitchen after the Thanksgiving meal as they helped do clean up. She already knew about the Prentiss household and sharing going on there, but not the larger picture with the Circle. The result was a shrug and resignation.

Heather's mother had already figured out that she was plugged into a large and loving social network. No further discussion was needed. That network had rescued her daughter and was improving her daughter's life, plus her own indirectly through the better apartment and money she 'earned' taking care of Matthew.

The last of the revelations involved David's brother Aaron and sister-in-law Shelby. Those disclosures took place in three interesting steps.

First, Aaron pulled Dave aside and asked whether the Circle was really a bunch of swingers who decided they wanted to swing all the time.

Dave explained, "The Circle could seem that way to an outside observer, but there are deeper feelings and emotions involved between all of us. The guys, all eight of us, are best friends, without sexual interaction, I might add. That's our preference. The women love all of us: eleven of them. In my case, I have a primary relationship with Alice, and almost as primary the relationships with Pam, Julie, and Heather."

"And you have sex with all of them?" Aaron asked in a subdued tone.

"No, I make love with them. There's a difference in my opinion. Yes, it's sex, but it's also an expression of the love we feel for each other. We developed an emotional and intellectual intimacy with each other that did not include sex; as well as physical intimacy to complete things."

"But there are Alice and ten other women, if I counted correctly."

"You did, and so what? Do you feel there's a limit to the amount of love a person can give? If you do, then I guess what I'm doing is crazy. If you agree, then when I'm loving twice as many you won't feel I'm doing anything wrong."

"Oh, I'm not saying it's wrong. Unconventional, yes. You are a lucky man. Almost every man in the country would love to change places with you. Every one of those women are A-list beautiful people in looks and personality. To tell the truth, I think I've fallen in love with all of them."

"I agree. I consider myself extremely lucky that they love me. We have each made a choice to love one another. We have opened our marital relationships to allow this. Alice and I have done that. I sometimes think of what we're doing as a group marriage. We each made the decision to wed the other people in the Circle."

"And the Cohousing Project?"

"Became a logical outcome of that thinking. Owen Bennett brought the idea to us because he was feeling what we were all feeling, namely love for people he wanted to spend time with."

"The women."

"Yes, but also the men – non-sexually. We really have become each other's best friends. We share a lot with each other."

"Like wives and girlfriends."

Dave winced, "Not quite. That kind of sharing implies ownership, possession, and hence a sense of loss if the person you'resharing is with someone else. I think we've all transcended that mindset. Alice, for instance, is her own independent person; I don't own or possess her like many archaic books and thinking might contend. We have declared and reaffirmed our marriage as between independent equals by mutual choice, but we also allowed the openness to be with others and not feel loss."

Aaron said, "I'd feel loss if Shelby left me for another man."

"I'd feel that from Alice, but she's not going to do that to me, nor I to her. That surety is what allows us to reject any jealous feelings that arise. When I have those, I know I'm coming at the situation with my old mindset from a year or two ago that built on ego, possessiveness, and dominance.

"Alternatively, I could help her transition to a new relationship, foster her happiness because that should be what is important to me – and it is, and then try to be the best friend I can be. Those choices are just not in our future. We've given each other consummate trust that neither of us will ever leave the other."

Chapter 11 – Desire to Convert

Aaron pondered Dave's remarks about how much he loved Alice and the other women, including the comment about trust and friendship. He said, "But wedding vows are constantly broken or shattered. Look at the divorce rate."

Dave replied, "Look at the causes. I know I studied them to be sure we're staying out of the traps. The largest reason, accounting for almost half of divorces, is incompatibility, so to combat that we spend time together talking about everything and every feeling we have; we make sure we're aligned on the important things that can drive a couple apart.

"The second largest cause of divorce is infidelity – almost a third. Our whole lifestyle addresses that head-on as I told you. Financial disagreements account for a quarter of divorces. Keeping out of this area can also fall back on a lot of communication about our values and how they tie to how we manage our money, what we save and spend on, and how we save for the future. Our whole family has had lots of detailed talks about our incomes, budgets, spending patterns, philanthropy, savings, retirement plans, estate plans, and more.

The next largest reason cited for divorce is emotional and-or physical abuse. This is where we're especially lucky in our large Prentiss family and our extended Circle family. No one is shy; every one of us would speak up if they feel someone is being treated inappropriately. The subject has only arisen a couple of times in our gatherings, but we've treated the discussion seriously and addressed what was thought at the time to be questionable behavior."

Aaron chuckled, "You've sure loosened up and gotten smart about relationships. Mom and Dad would be amazed but disappointed that you've gotten away from all our church's values. Also, growing up, you avoided talking to anybody if there was something wrong. I get the feeling that's all changed."

"It has. Dori Winter, the older blonde at your table, saw that Alice and I were falling into all the old traps. We were tighter than drumheads, uncommunicative about a lot of topics including especially sex and our marriage, and ... I guess pretty dumb about life in general. She gave us challenge after challenge to get us to a new place, and to stress our mettle and resilience. There were a few times, if we'd been living in our old paradigm, that our marriage would have fractured and we'd have separated."

Aaron looked curious, "Can you share one?"

"After we thought we were fairly well into the new paradigm about our marriage and relationship, even after Pam was living with us and we were making love with the others, Dori gave the entire Circle a challenge. I think she weighted it towards Alice and me, because we were her project and she knew we needed what she did to break through to another level in our loosening up process.

"Dori had everyone spend a week being 'married' to someone else in the group. We had to live with them. Pam went off with Roy. Christie came to live with me, and brought Heather with her. Alice got paired with Owen, and he flew her to Paris and Rome on his private jet and put a full-court and very romantic press on her to win her over. She was already his, but they fell deeply in passionate love over that week. Alice even confessed to me that if we hadn't been married, she would have married Owen during the trip. Anyway, I went through all kinds of angst, jealousy, worry, sense of loss, and just about every other negative emotion you could think up.

"In the end, I came back to our new model for a relationship. The relevant quote is, 'If you love someone set them free. If they come back, they're yours. If you don't, they never were.' That over simplifies a lot of things and sounds too possessive, but I like the sentiment. I realized I had set Alice free, but even to say that implies ownership that I disavow. Alice did come back to me more open, more trustworthy, and more loving than ever before in our marriage. We made our choices that day she returned to love each other like we never had before, and here we are. We really did transform our marriage."

Aaron shook his head, "Wow. I'm not sure I could do that with Shelby. Maybe I could. I guess I need to talk to her. We've never had discussions like you imply, and when we talk about sex it's only whether we're both interested at the same time – kind of like asking permission. Usually, she's not."

Dave laughed, "It's like being back in junior high school, except the stakes are higher. Put it on an adult-adult basis, and create options for when one of you is interested and the other isn't. What do you suppose happens here?" He gestured around the Circle of homes.

"Errr, you go to visit someone else who is interested?" Aaron offered.

"Yes, but no one makes it a pejorative event. We keep any animosity or ill feelings or judgments out of the interplay."

Aaron said, "Like, 'So you're not interested, I think I'll go visit Dori'?"

"Yes; a little subtler than that, but yes; be a little smoother. We all know what the options are in the Circle. We enjoy and foster those options, even when we are sure of acceptance of any offer on the home front."

"But you have four women at your disposal all the time."

"And I desire to keep fanning the flames of love with all the other women, too; and their partners want to nurture the relationships they have with the women I live with. This works, and it's the core reason we all decided to create the Circle Cohousing Project, and move into one very close neighborhood together."

Dave's sister-in-law came to him the next morning after breakfast. She and Aaron were staying in one of the rooms in the Tenth House on the Circle. "David, could we talk for a few minutes."

"Sure. What can I do you for?"

"Last night, you and Aaron had a long talk about the Circle, your lifestyle, and I guess your philosophy about life, marriage, and relationships. He shared it with me last night, in fact, we talked about our own marriage and relationship most of the night."

"We did. I didn't mean to leave him apparently so unsettled."

"Oh, you didn't. You leftboth of us unsettled by the time he told me all of your talk, and now we're full of questions, and ideas, and a desire to understand and know more."

Dave frowned, "I'm not sure I understand."

Shelby wrapped Dave in a hug and then kissed her brother-in-law on the lips with definite meaning and no rush to completion. Used to regularly kissing many different women, he went with the flow of things allowing her to set the pace. He kissed back and then even felt the flick of his sister-in-law's tongue against his lips.

Shelby shyly said as she continued to hold on to him, "We find your lifestyle intriguing, fascinating, desirable, and something we want to do."

"Aaaaah, are you sure? This is no small step from your conservative marriage. This is like jumping off a cliff not sure whether it's a two inch drop or a two hundred feet. Remember that scene fromButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Aaron was raised the same way I was, only two years behind me. I know the pressures, memes, lessons, and things he's been taught. Hell, we went to the same Sunday School. From all that to where I am now is a huge philosophical distance that has many emotional implications. I can tell you that it's a roller coaster ride."

"And what did you do with all of those things you learned and taught?"

"I had to unlearn just about all of it to get to where I am now. Those principles and their life action implications dealt with a much different world and set of reactions than I have now. Even Aaron admitted to an anchor in that paradigm last night. He'd have to unlearn that, and I know you have some of the same roots, so you would, too."

"He told you he couldn't let me go on a trip like you allowed Alice to go on with Owen. Did you think that was a signal that he'd never allow me to change the way you allowed Alice to change?"

"Yes, only the word 'allow' sounds too harsh. Those words make it sound like I hold control over her in some way, and Alice and I admitted we didn't want to live that way. She's my equal, and so are Pam, Julie, and Heather. They make their own decisions about whom they love and how they do it. I'm here to talk about it with them, help generate ideas, think things through, but I am not an 'allowing' or 'controlling' person any longer. I was trying to show Aaron that he's been raised to think differently."

"That's what Aaron said. He said Dori gave Alice challenges, but they were as much about your reaction to things as hers. Is that true? What were some of them?"

Dave laughed. "You should ask Dori, but I'll tell you a few. Initially, she had Alice start to dress much less like a nun. She had us watch porn. She had Alice flash her tits at people, and then her pussy. That's how she met Owen, by the way. Alice had to change her vocabulary to more earthy terms for genitalia and sex acts, and then expand the dirty talk we used with each other as we fucked. Our Saturday get-togethers with the neighbors became sexier and sexier, with increasing nudity, interplay between each other, foreplay, and then sex. I guess you could see how these could gradually escalate a couple like Alice and me from being staid, boring, sex in the missionary position once or twice a week, monogamous, exclusive, and up tight pair who both wanted more out of life but didn't know what we wanted or what to do, to where we are today."

Shelby was hanging on every word, "Yes. Yes. That's exactly what we need to do, and I love all the challenges she gave you. I bet some of them would work for us, too."

"Errr, maybe. Look, Shelby, each of the couples in the Circle made some kind of transition to where they are today over the past couple of years. Talk to the others. Learn what they went through. Not everyone had challenges like Dori gave Alice and me, yet they made the journey. Of course, not everyone was as uptight about life and sex as Alice and I were."

Shelby studied David. He could feel the evaluation and the attraction by her. She asked, "Would you sleep with me?"

Dave was shocked by the sudden question. It was out of the blue, and certainly out of character for the sister-in-law he'd known for the past five years. She was supposed to be as conservative, staid, and conventional as Alice had been when they married. More than when they married, right up to about two years earlier when Dori's challenges to loosen up had started to change them.

Dave stroked Shelby's face, running a finger down her cheek, her neck, and then to the cleavage her blouse provided. He stopped right at the fabric line above a button. "I would like nothing more than to make love to you, but you are not ready, and Aaron is not ready. The decisions that brought Alice and me to where we are were not made overnight. They were long considered, debated, and thought out. Any of us in the Circle would gladly mentor you through that trip."

Shelby leaned up and kissed Dave again. "You are such a great guy. Now, I know I'm talking to the right person. Of course, you're right. We need lots more talk about a new lifestyle."

"The devil is in the details. Make sure you address those. Remember, Aaron is the guy that told me about twelve hours ago that he wasn't sure he could share you."

"He declared he could after we'd talked."

"Test that. I assume he's still in bed."

"He was."

"Go tell him that you and I had sex and that you thought it was the greatest thing that ever happened to you. See how he reacts. I can almost guarantee that it won't be the easy accommodation to that concept as he thinks it is."

"What if he thinks we really did?"

"Look around. We have a bevy of witnesses reading, watching TV, and playing with Matthew to know that all we did was sit here in the kitchen. When you're ready to let him recover from the shock that he may have just lost you to me, then you can tell him what this discussion was really about and how he could verify that we only talked. What'd Reagan say, 'Trust but verify'?"

Shelby said, "I have to know." She slipped away out of the core and over to the Tenth House.

Dave chuckled and went to join Alice and Pam who were starting to make waffles for everyone that hadn't already shown up for breakfast.

Dave was reading his iPad, catching up on several reports from staff in his broader work area at the utility.

A voice from behind him said in a flat statement, "You fucked my wife."

Dave turned and smiled at his brother, "Maybe. She said you'd declared it was all right."

"I did, but the reality of the situation has left me in shock."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Shelby coming to join them. She was on the verge of laughter. She looped an arm around Aaron's shoulders. "Everything all right?" She teased, "Your brother was amazing. He understood my body like he'd known it all his life. I'm really in love with him. I think we should move here so we can do this more often – like every day and twice a night."

Aaron all but cried at Shelby's statements.

Dave allowed a minute or two to pass as he studied the couple, and they alternately looked at him and then at each other. Eventually, he nodded at Shelby.