Chapter 36: Fan Club

Dave had gotten a large paper map of the United States from AAA. He’d mounted the large map on black foam board. On the map, Dave had worked with Cricket, and plotted out the entire route that Jim Mellon supposedly traveled in the book Road Trip. That information was marked on the map in a very pale blue color with small light blue map pins to indicate the places Mellon had stopped and had some kind of adventure or love affair along his route.

Next on the map, Dave had put tiny opaque red dots with a Sharpie at the points of interest in most states that he wanted to see. He’d started using a ruler and protractor to block out an ideal path to connect the dots. This part he was doing in #1 pencil with a large eraser handy.

Occasionally, Dave would bypass a red dot. Such points of interest were too far off the best-travel track and not significant enough to warrant a major deviation between two other more significant points.

The other feature of Mellon’s journey that Dave also wanted to adhere to as best he could was staying off of the Interstate highways. Dave wanted to see some of back roads America. Blasting between points at seventy miles an hour on an Interstate one didn’t see much except a sterile countryside. The drama occurred outside a mile or more on either side of those highways.

Dave felt the hard nubs of a woman’s bare breasts against his bare back as he sat on patio studying the map. He got kissed on his right ear. “I love you.”

“I love you, Alice.”

“I’m excited about your trip. I’m receiving on a lot of vicarious enjoyment as you do this. Of course, I’m aided by having read Road Trip and Crystal Clear, and then watching my sister-wife Scarlett play the part of Crystal. When do you think you’ll leave?”

“I guess I’ll leave around early June – so in two or three months. The springtime weather patterns further north will have cleared out by then, and the days will be sunnier and the temperatures warmer. Some of that won’t bother me that much because I plan to travel on sunny days, so long as it’s safe.”

“Did you talk to everyone, yet?”

Dave nodded, “I did. All the wives approve and some want to participate. A few other people also want to join me for a few days here and there along the trip. After I figure out my ideal route, I’ll ask people what links they might want to see with me. If there are over-subscribed links, I’ll come up with some way to choose; maybe by drawing a name from a hat. You have unlimited choices and bumping privileges.”

Alice said, “Leave yourself some alone time, and some time to meet some damsels in distress the way Jim Mellon did. I fully expect you to seduce lots of new pussy, and maybe even bring some of it back here after you get back.”

“Providing they had a recent STD test, per chance,” Dave chuckled. “Outside our gates, people do not routinely get tested or if they do, I doubt they carry their paper around with them.”

Alice said, “I think the whole single’s community is attuned to that channel these days. We’ve also stressed it several times during each season of our TV show. I would agree with you that the intentionally monogamous couples don’t get tested, but I think the others are more aware of at least what they should be doing and most do it.”

“And yet, college campuses have rampant problems.”

“Teens that age think they’re indestructible. Look at Tanya and Jake, and their wake-up call. Multiply that by a thousand and you have what’s going on at just our own in-town university.”

Dave asked, “Do you think we ought to have a special talk with our students?”

Alice thought about it. “Do it a different way. Get the opinion leaders and talk to them, and ask them to pass on our concerns. I join you in that.”

“Good idea. I don’t want to give the impression that we don’t trust our students, but I do want to have them reminded about a fundamental tenet of this place: protect each other.”

At dinner that night, Dave sought out Logan, Piper, Caleb, Hillary, Wyatt, Matt, and Rose. The group had dinner together with Dave and Alice.

Dave thanked the group for joining them, and then got straight to the agenda. “You are the thought leaders in the Circle and pledges, so we wanted to use you to get a reminder to everyone in your cohort about the Circle rule about STDs, or STIs, if you prefer.

“The university is a hot bed of those diseases and we’ve had a near miss recently. One of the Circle principles is that we protect each other, if we can. This is an easy one. We keep our sexual relations in this closed community. If we step outside, we require a new test that proves cleanliness, so to speak. We may even double protect with a condom. Any questions or doubts about what we’re trying to do here?”

Wyatt said, “Trying to prevent an epidemic in what many consider a promiscuous community.”

Alice and Dave nodded. “Imagine what the Circle would be if we had to shut down all the sex and loving for three to six months because of some widespread propagation of some infection? I hate to think about it.”

Piper said, “My History class just studied the influenza epidemic of 1917-1918 that killed fifty million people. An STD by a Circle member or pledge would spread the same way through this group. No way that I’m going to let that happen.”

The others agreed with the message and said they’d be sure the message got spread around to the others associated with the Circle in their age group.

Monday night, the Circle 101 class met. As had been the case the week before, eleven pledges and two guests showed up. Of the pledges, two were new: Mitch and Jocelyn had declared pledge status. The guests were again Chet and Misty, neither of whom had committed to become a pledge, yet they were going through the steps.

Matt and Rose had asked to be able to accompany Misty and Chet to the class, and Dave had agreed providing he could call on them. He’d asked them to be somewhat circumspect in dominating any of the discussions since they were so well versed in the Circle topics. Everyone knew that Dave used the Socratic Method of teaching to lead the students to conclusions about how they thought and contrasted that with the way the Circle operated.

Dave kicked things off by posing a question to Jocelyn. “Since you are now officially a pledge, I get the privilege of throwing you some of the tougher questions. So, I know you’ve accepted the role as girlfriend with Toby. He also had Danica as his girlfriend, and that’s not a secret from anybody. My question starts with a little scenario. Friday night, you’re feeling romantic and hoping to be with Toby. As you start to approach him after dinner, you see him kissing ... Cricket, and even fondling her breasts. They have obviously paired off, at least for the start of the sexual festivities that night. The question is how do you feel?”

Jocelyn was slightly taken back. “Ooooh! I didn’t expect to be called upon right at the start of class. I’d feel disappointed and maybe a little jealous. I would hope to connect with him later that evening.”

Dave followed up, “What would you do?”

Jocelyn said awkwardly, “I guess I’d sit and wait for him to reappear on the patio.”

Dave pointed to his left where Rose and Matt sat with Chet and Misty. “Rose, what would you think and do?”

Rose laughed, “I’d be slightly disappointed, too, but I’d be glad that Toby was connecting with someone else I knew he loved. That would give me a warm feeling, and even a jolt or arousal as I started to think about how they’d make love together. I might even visualize their coupling and making love. I would not sit idle and wait; I would see what other men I like were unclaimed and ask one of them whether they wanted to hook-up. If all the men were busy, I’d shift gears and ask one of the other women I like whether they wanted to enjoy some sexual time together making love.”

Jocelyn was nodding at what she’d just been taught about perspective on the situation and how her thinking had been expanded. She hadn’t allowed for those options in her thinking.

Dane asked, “How do you get your thinking from where Jocelyn started to where Rose is? I know from our reading that instead of jealousy we need compersion, but how do you shift gears between the two?”

“Anybody?”

Penny said, “Somehow we learned to be jealous, so we can therefore unlearn it. We need something inside us that sounds off when we start to feel that way. When that would happen, we’d think about compersion.”

Dave asked, “What would be the thing that sounds off inside us?”

Penny ventured, “Maybe if we start to feel badly about some situation involving another person. For instance, we experience the feeling of loss or rejection in your scenario or feel we’ve been cuckolded or cuckqueaned. Make those feelings the trigger.”

“Have you tried it?”

Penny nodded, “Yes, but it took conscious thought. The jealousy that appeared was unconscious; it was just suddenly there. I had to unthink it - forcefully.”

Dave turned to Trent, “What else do you think would help?”

Trent grinned, “I’m a nerd and left-brain kind of guy, so for me I’d just start to think through what was actually happening. In your scenario and thinking as Jocelyn, I’d start with did he purposely snub me in favor of Cricket? Did Cricket set out to screw me over? The way you laid it out, it didn’t sound like it. So, any emotions that I come up with are mine alone and not due to anything but circumstances and judgments I’m making.

“I’d also ask myself why I didn’t go and join in? We all know there are more women than men in the Circle, and that threesomes with a man and two women happen several times every night. Why not ask them if they want company, or whether you could drop in on them in thirty or forty minutes?”

Heads in the Circle were nodding. People could see other options.

Tina spoke up, “I still recall a quote from Shakespeare you told us that I think of all the time, especially in a situation like you laid out. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ Maybe Jocelyn not being included with Toby and Cricket is the best thing that could happen in that situation. She might meet and make love with another man who truly sweeps her off her feet. There are all sorts of ‘What if?’ games. Jealousy be damned.” She and the class chuckled.

Dave asked, “Do you think that the Circle is free of negative emotions and drama?”

There was laughter, and then the discussion took off again talking about some of the situations the pledges had seen or heard about that were either or both.

Dave was reading and working over his travel map on the patio just after lunch on Wednesday. A few feet away, Cricket sat in the shade at her laptop computer writing or editing passages in her current book that she still hadn’t announced. Cricket was tan and topless. There were others scattered around the patio.

Helen Ursinger came up to Dave and leaned over for a kiss. She was topless as well, wearing the standard patio uniform for warm days of a monokini.

Helen said, “I need to interrupt you and Cricket. I’m glad I found you both here. This is about the TV show.” Concurrent with having moved into the Circle and becoming a full member, she continued to work for Spring Garden Productions, the company doing the videos for the reality TV show about the Circle.

After they’d joined Cricket, Helen began, “Do you know what a fan club is and what they do?”

Cricket said, “It’s a group of people that love some movie star or media personality. I’m sure Scarlett has dozens of them.”

Dave said, “Don’t they end up with t-shirts, pins, and coffee mugs showing their support. Do they ever really meet like a club?”