The Circle Ch. 40

Chapter 40 – Crash aftermath. Jim's interview and philosophy

Tracy was released from the hospital three weeks later with a list of 'can't dos' as long as her broken arm. Dr. Rama wanted to err on the cautious side, and only after extensive ultrasounds, MRIs, and x-rays did he relent and let her go. He did not want her to fly, so Jim rented a car and drove home seven hours with her as the most eager passenger to get away from St. Louis. Dr. Rama had arranged for local care at a hospital near home, and was emphatic that she had to take it really easy for eight to twelve weeks.

Tracy had lost weight and carried the ugly and angry scars on her face, arm, foot, and abdomen from the air crash. The rest of her seemed to be healing as expected. The bruising was gone, but the facial stitches would require action. Tracy assured everyone that she planned on some plastic surgery once she got a go-ahead from her new doctor. She also had arrived home with a plaster cast on one arm, a removable prosthetic boot on one foot, and a cane for stability when shuffling around the house.

One of the first things she did when home was go to the cemetery where Doug Mayes' ashes had been interred. It was a sad day for her. She mourned over her close friend, boss, mentor, and lover for a long time before allowing Jim to take her home again after a stop to pay her respects to Brenda Mayes.

The final toll from the air crash was fifty-five dead, and one-hundred-ten injured, some so seriously their lives were forever changed. Tracy was lucky.

The ruling by the National Transportation Safety Board was that the airline pilot had used bad judgment in taking off with thunderstorms and microbursts known to be in the immediate area. He'd even acknowledged a warning from the tower controller at Lambert Field. This ruling left the airline further liable for actual and punitive damages, and wrongful death lawsuits.

Tracy joined a class action lawsuit with other passengers injured in the air crash. The result was a five million dollar settlement to be paid out over ten years. The airline paid all further medical claims associated with the crash, a point that resulted in them paying for ten different plastic surgeries that Tracy underwent to repair the damage to her face, arm, foot, and abdomen, although the sites of the damage were never entirely right even after the repair work.

Tracy was one of the lucky ones in that she healed and could return to a normal life.

Visionix, Tracy's company, held her position, and hired some temporary executives to fill in the holes the two had left – Doug by his death, and Tracy by her long recovery.

Tracy eventually went back to work for them, doing no travel and short days for six weeks, before changing back to fulltime. The first flight she had to make for work made her nervous, but she toughed through the experience and became the backbone of the sales staff.

Tracy made the rounds of the clients she and Doug had been cultivating, capturing a lot of orders and doing a banner job. She was also successful with new leads having learned from a master how to cultivate them into real and worthwhile customers.

One day in the office, the president of Visionix came by her cubicle while she was logging in some new sales she'd just made into the company's computer systems. "Tracy, I haven't seen you much, but I am very aware of the work you are doing for us and the difficulties you've had to endure to do those.

"Losing Doug devastated all of us, and I know it hit you particularly hard since he was your mentor. He was loved by all of us. He always spoke of you in glowing terms."

"Thank you, Mr. Harrington. I miss Doug every moment of the day." Tracy's voice still had a tremor in it every time Doug's name came up.

"Please, call me Ken. I hope we'll be seeing more of you from now on, especially given your new position."

"New position?" Tracy wondered about that remark.

"Tracy, Doug raved about your performance with the clients, and the evidence is that he was right. Since you've come back and filled the void Doug left, you've not only restored the order stream, but you've far exceeded everyone's expectations. Moreover, we've watched how you interact with the rest of the sales team, and you are a team builder. People respond to you as a leader. I know Doug would have wanted this for you, and he'd be rightly proud. As of today, you are taking over his position as the vice president of sales. You're now the youngest VP we have, but I know you'll knock yourself out for us."

Tracy's mouth was agog. Such a promotion had never even been in her fantasies. She fully expected the company to bring someone in from outside to replace Doug, and according to the company's rumor mill that was to be the case. As she thought of Doug, tears came to her eyes. She said, "Thank you. Thank you Doug."

* * * * *

Somehow, through the entire air crash, the TV cameras for the reality TV series continued to roll. They'd followed Jim to St. Louis as he waited for word on her health, stayed during her recovery in the hospital, shot some scenes there, and then had been part of the welcoming committee when Tracy returned. They'd honored her request to not accompany her to the grave to pay her respects to Doug Mayes, but had been by Jim's car.

The promotion for Tracy was bittersweet news, and the others in the house while congratulating her, acknowledged that she'd lost her friend, lover, mentor, and possible father of the baby that Tracy lost. As Tracy could get back to work, she went at it with renewed enthusiasm.

Several of her friends at work let her know that there was an older contingent that was sure that she would fail miserably. Tracy had no qualms about proving them wrong, and as each month went by, that indeed proved to be the case.

Tracy brought fresh ideas and views to the sales and marketing work of Visionix. She formed an advisory board of academics teaching in the MBA programs at nearby colleges and universities. The group neither advised, nor sat as a board, but the honorary positions did let Tracy pick their brains for new ideas to sell more of Visionix's products, and every idea seemed to work.

She also instituted the Visionix Training Institute or VTI as it became known. Each quarter, special 'free' weeklong classes were held for the executives of their client organizations. She paraded the academics past them, having them make renowned presentations on issues important to the clients, and also used the forum to introduce more of Visionix's products and management. Every time one of her forums was held, a significant jump in orders would occur. The good news is that the new order levels would remain firm and not slide back to older, lower levels.

One Friday, Matt brought a special guest home to The Circle. He'd alerted everyone about her visit, and the reason. That first evening, was merely to introduce her to the large intentional family and to show her the house where all but a few of them lived.

The guest was Dr. Jessica Slarinsky or Dr. S as she'd had Ellen, Tammy, and a few others call her professionally.

Jessica was an accomplished psychologist engaged in both a clinical practice, as well as research in connection with an adjunct appointment at the nearby university. She was a person who exuded warmth and engendered likability; people knew instantly that she liked them, and they wanted to like her.

Jess was a pretty woman in her mid-forties, wore glasses that gave her a professorial look, yet was what several The Circle men called 'hot.' Ellen had reported that when she was counseling her, she would use her questions to lead her insights and conclusions about herself, instead of collecting information and then disgorging a solution and plan of action based on some textbook answer. For Jess, the patient had to come up with the solution and the action plan.

Matt escorted her inside, and then was greeted as usual with handshakes and kisses from the other men and women in The Circle. Several extended the custom to Dr. S., an action that was easy to do because she gave off her friendly vibrations and was a pretty woman in her early forties.

Jess didn't expect the hugs and kisses, so there some hesitation, but then laughter as she realized this was normal behavior for the group. Some of the group was a bit reserved in their welcome, unsure of the reason for her presence.

"Please call me Jess or Jessica. This is not a clinical consultation. I am here to ask a favor."

Later, over dinner, Matt asked Jess to stand and talk about her idea. The TV cameras lurked in the shadows and captured her request.

"I am a clinical and research psychologist. I'm told you know I've worked with Ellen and Tammy, so there are no secrets there." She nodded to the two women at the table.

Jess went on, "What I would like to do is to study your circle. The last serious studies of polyamorous groups, if I dare even use the word 'study' for what was going on back then, were in the 1960s and 1970s when the hippies started communes and the free love generation flourished. Since then, there has been little academic-based research in the subject area that didn't rehash some of the same issues and findings of those older studies.

"With your indulgence and at Matt's suggestion after I made my initial request to him, I would like to live here for a couple of weeks – Matt has said he could arrange that, and I'd like to interview each of you, probably for up to four hours for each of you; we can break the interviews up into shorter sessions. I'm working on an interview protocol now – the questions I'll ask, and will have the basis for the first interviews next week. The first few interviews I do will help me refine that protocol.

"The result of my work with you will be a research paper on a twenty-first century polyamorous family – yours, but I will try to generalize from the specific, since I am aware of the findings of those earlier studies. I will be glad to use aliases to disguise your names, and can easily rewrite the results in a separate geography too; but with your reality TV series about to start in the fall, I wonder if that's necessary. What do you think?"

One by one, various questions about the research and the study came up. What would be the focus? How would she treat the sex and group sex? Did she want to highlight any of the dramas that had occurred? Was any one person her focus? When would the paper come out and where?

Jessica explained about how at this stage the findings and directions of the research were hard to predict since she didn't know that much about The Circle or living arrangements other than what she'd picked up incidentally from Tammy and Ellen, and a chat with Matt and Renee a year earlier.

After further discussion, everyone agreed to participate and looked forward to being interviewed.

A week later, Matt helped Jessica move some things into an empty bedroom up on the third floor of the new addition.

As he placed one of her large suitcases on the spare bed in the room, Jess asked, "Why the spare bed? Is this a guest room?"

"Oh, no. Brad and Michelle use this room when they're staying here, but they've opted to forego their visits for the weeks you're here. They'll be around, but they'll be doubled up with others."

"Oh, they're one of the married couples?"

Matt laughed, "Sort of. Brad is married to Sandy, the hot cheerleader you met at dinner last week, and Michelle is married to Don Young – they're Monica's parents."

"And they happily bunk together?"

"Yes, but let me explain about roommates and the sleeping arrangements in The Circle. First, we all love each other, and I say that in terms of mind, body, and spiritual connections. Most of the women are bisexual, and a couple of the men don't mind that connection, but most of the men are straight.

"We all sleep together – I mean with each other, and quite intentionally each man and woman tries to make love with each other at least every couple of weeks. Sometimes, we develop a special affinity for someone of the opposite sex, and when we do, we may try to become a roommate with that person. That increases the incidence of intimacy, including sex. By tradition, no one has kept the same roommate longer than four months, and during that time they still visit with others or have others visit them. There's no hard or fast rule about that; it's just how it's played out in the past.

"If there's not a special romantic attachment, the roommate situation may last longer before they take steps to go off with others. Jim and Zoey were together almost two years, and they loved it and each other, but it was an arrangement of convenience not a special romantic consideration. During that time Zoey could often be found in someone else's bed."

Matt smiled, "So, when you ask about the spare bed, it's for the possibility that you might like someone to be your roommate, and if you did the implication is that you'd share yourselves with each other frequently, usually sleeping together in the same bed unless one of you is an unusually restless sleeper."

Jessica nodded, "Thank you. I will think about the roommate situation. This is exactly what I'm trying to learn about your living arrangements."

Matt paused and added, "There's at least one other custom I need to describe to you since you'll be wandering the hallways of the house at all hours; this one involves the doors to each room."

Jessica looked at the door to her room with a puzzled expression.

Matt went on, "If your door is open, that is an invitation to one and all to come in, and to visit or to join in with whatever is going on in the room, including sex. Most of us are exhibitionists and voyeurs, as you'll find out.

"A door that is open only a few inches invites voyeurs, but not participation." As Matt explained, he went and put Jess's door so it was ajar only about a foot. He added, "And a door that is shut, means please don't interrupt; I want privacy. That shut door policy does not apply to roommates; they could come in at any time."

Jessica smiled. "I always did love the open door policy." She walked over and opened her room door wide. She winked at Matt.

Matt explained one other thing to her, "Jess, just so you know, no one here will hit on you. When we have 'outside' guests, we respect their boundaries and don't presume that they will want to adopt ours. The men are especially solicitous about that, and they don't want to perv on you or anyone else not ready for it."

"How does something get initiated then?"

"Well, with our guests, they must make the invitation or first move. Among the family members, that's not an issue; anyone can initiate as subtly or as egregiously as they choose." He snickered thinking of some of the invitations he'd seen unfurled around the house between circle members, including a long scroll done in calligraphy and signed by ten of the men who wanted a gangbang with Renee – a fetish they knew was on her bucket list.

Jess came up to Matt, well inside his personal space, and said, "This is an invitation from a guest. Please kiss me."

Matt's eyes grew large as he smiled at the pretty professional woman. She came into his open arms with her face uplifted to his, and he leaned down and the couple shared a first romantic kiss. Matt didn't presume that the invitation extended any further than what Jess had said, and that seemed to be the case as they separated.

Jess said as they parted, "This will take a bit of time to get used to. I know it did for Ellen and Tammy too. Thank you for the kiss; I just had to test the waters – you know, collect some empirical evidence for my paper."

Matt allowed in benevolent tone, "Tammy is still building her confidence. We all try to help. As for the kiss, I am honored, so thank you. Any time you need more verification of any point, especially like that, please count me in as one of your research subjects."

Jessica nodded and smiled. As Dr. S, she was seeing Tammy every week, so knew of the emotions and internal conflicts the woman faced. One of the things she'd heard from Ellen, Tammy, and Matt was how open and revealing about their innermost thoughts and feelings everyone in The Circle was with one another. There were no secrets except around Christmas time, when the group did the Secret Santa game.

Saturday morning, Matt and Jim met in the hallway upstairs and came down together, prepared to take a five-mile jog. There in the living room limbering up was Jessica Slarinsky.

She smiled at the men, "Good morning. I'm glad to see some of you are keeping fit. Can we run together? How far are you going?"

The men greeted her. Jim said, "We were planning on five miles. Is that too long or too short for you?"

"Could I talk you into something around eight to ten miles?"

Matt said, "Sure, I know a route that'll give us something in that range." He checked with Jim to be sure his partner was willing to extend.

Moments later the three of them set out from the house, out of the cul-de-sac holding the house, and then onto some neighboring streets that led to a long path through a state forest.

Jess had a nice natural lope that was a little faster than Matt or Jim was used to. They let her pull ahead, and then tailed her, both men studying her taut butt.

Jessica slowed slightly and said to them over her shoulder, "Yes, I have a nice ass, or so I've been told. I don't mind you checking me out. For that matter, I noticed that you two had fairly tight butts too, despite having desk jobs."

The men laughed. Matt smiled, "Busted. Do you have eyes in the back of your head?"

"No, but I know my handsome men. You've proven to be quite predictable so far."

As they panted back to the house, walking the last couple of hundred yards to cool down, Jess asked Jim, "If you're free after some showers, I'd love to start my interviews with you; what say?"

Jim smiled, "I'm yours. Meet you in twenty minutes in the lounge and we can find a place that's quiet."

Jess said, "If you're willing, I'd like to do it in your room. I want to get a feel for what you're like in your own, hand-picked environment."

Jim nodded, "Then just come by when you're ready. My door will be open."

About twenty minutes later, Jessica strolled into Jim's bedroom that he shared with Lynn, when she stayed at the house. Lynn was at her own home that day, but expected back for dinner.

Jim had just slipped on shorts, and a t-shirt. Jess wore a similar ensemble, and also carried her cellphone, a pad of paper, and some printed sheets that she referred to periodically – her interview protocol.

Jess started, "Thanks for allowing me to start with you. You're my first subject. I may quote some of the remarks you make to others to stimulate their interviews, but I will do so without attribution unless you want it otherwise. If you tell me to disregard or hold confidential any part of our discussion, I ask that you please tell me at that time. If it's acceptable to you, I would like to record the interview."

Matt nodded and Jess started an app on her iPhone that recorded the interview.

About that time, two members of the reality TV film crew knocked on the doorframe. "May I tape you?"

Jim thought a moment, "Sure. Come on in. I'll let you know if there's anything I want stricken from the record. Also, I expect that part of this will not be for the viewing public because of the adult content. Anything you want, you can quote me on." He laughed and motioned them into the room after checking with Jessica.

Jessica sat in an armchair as Jim sat on the bed. She started by having him give a short biography, including how he was one of the founding fathers of The Circle. Jim was quite frank about how he, Matt, and Bob decided they wanted to date Zoey, Monica, and Sheila, at the same time. He talked about how they'd sought help from Alice, skipping over the sexual liaisons they'd had as a group with her to curb their sexual appetites when they started to date the girls. Sometime, he'd show her the porn movie if she got that detailed.