The Circle Ch. 46

Chapter 46 – Martial arts pays off

Derek stood on a mat in the center of the patio. He wore a traditional white gi, with white slippers. Around his waist he wore a black belt tied in a special knot. On the black belt were three embroidered braids, also black, indicating he had achieved the highest dan in at least one of the martial arts he'd been schooled in at the nearby dojo. From time to time, he would flow into a new position of the Tai Chi, the ancient Chinese martial arts discipline with highly prescribed moves. The clothing amplified his steps and the smooth fluid nature of his moves, particularly as he transitioned from one move to another.

Nearby on four other mats Kyle, Mike, Ellie, and Tina repeated his moves as close as they could. While they wore the gis, none of them wore a belt. Derek was more practiced and smooth, however, his acolytes were skilled and fluid enough in the moves to prove they were not novices.

The five had been meeting three mornings a week before breakfast for an hour for almost a year. When the weather was inclement they would take over the exercise room in the basement or the lounge. In good weather, such as that day, they used the patio near the pool.

Off to the side, Derek had some soothing Native American flute music playing from his iPhone through a small Bose speaker that had amazing sound quality. Although anachronistic – the Oriental martial arts moves and the music from a different country and different era – the two seemed to harmonize together for those participating in the morning drills.

Also off to one side, the reality TV cameras filmed the workout session. Darrell was on duty, and particularly liked this filming because of the light, and the selection of music. This would play well when edited into the one-hour TV show.

Dr. Slarinsky came out of the house with a cup of coffee wearing a robe that barely covered her obviously naked body. Despite having finished her interviews with everyone weeks earlier, she lived at the house most of the time and had become a permanent part of The Circle. She watched the last of the exercises, even familiar with the steps they went through. Despite carrying the liquid, she made some smooth moves of her own emulating the others.

Derek whispered a few words to the other four standing on their mats. In unison, they each bowed to their colleagues in the exercise, stooped, and rolled up their mats. Except for Derek the others went into the house to get ready for work or breakfast.

Jess came up to Derek, "I've watched you do this before. You are really good."

Derek blushed slightly, "I wish you'd join us. I've been doing some form of martial arts since I was eight years old. This was my own brand of Tai Chi, but really I have been trying to maintain my aikido."

"Aikido?"

Derek smiled, "It's roots are Japanese, but probably go back to ancient China. Although it is martial training, it is philosophically about reconciliation and universal peace. Peace through strength; strength through practice; practice through harmony; harmony through alignment with the Universe. I have a black belt in the practice from a dojo in the City." He gestured to his belt.

Jess looked surprised, "I had no idea you had these skills. You never mentioned this in your interview."

"I don't advertise it. I do have a small tattoo emphasizing the ki – the kanji symbol that represents the combined characteristics of the martial discipline and the philosophy of peace through strength." Derek pulled up one leg of his gi, showing her his calf.

He continued as he led Jess into the kitchen, "In aikido you often use the motions of your opponents against them. For instance, if they rush at you, you help them go right on by, perhaps with a well-placed chop or kick. Much of my training was about leverage."

Jess reached over and felt the muscles of the young man through his white suit. "Oh, wow! You have some hard muscles in there."

"I place great emphasis on staying in shape. Some strength is required in all of the arts."

"Are you teaching the others?"

"Not really. We use the mornings to stretch and meditate with Tai Chi as a base. This is my own variety since I have trouble remembering some of the sequences, so sometimes I'm making it up as I go along. They know, but don't care about the precision often insisted on by some dojos. My dojo would have a fit if they saw what we were doing. The others have all had some training in their past. In this case, we are seeking harmony with the Universe before we start our day."

Nathan rushed through the kitchen, but stopped when he saw Jess. He came over and kissed her. "Thank you for spending the night with me. You made me feel very loved."

Jess held the handsome man, "Oh, the feeling is very mutual and I do love you. You are one of the best cuddlers I know, and that's a high compliment in my book. We'll do it again sometime soon."

After another kiss, Nathan bolted out the door headed for his job. More than some of the others, Nathan had suffered a setback at work when the nature of his living arrangement had first been revealed in the press years earlier. Since then, particularly with the TV show, he'd become a celebrity and his company had reversed its position, and now seemed to appreciate his worth. He'd even had a promotion to the nearby field office, and now didn't have to prowl the various auto body shops as he had in the past.

As Derek went off to change and then go to work, Jess headed into the lounge area where she'd taken over one of the tables to work on her article about polyamorous life in The Circle. The detailed outline of the article was done, and she was now filling in the details.

Jess had identified several personality traits that she thought contributed to the high willingness to participate in The Circle – and the Circle's success. Her interview with Stacy had 'popped' her thinking about this approach to the paper that was now tentatively entitled 'General traits for people in polyamorous group situations.' She was sure she could also write several more scholarly papers based on all the data she'd collected.

Jess had spent a week writing and rewriting the section on 'sexuality.' She had sounded too enthusiastic about the trait in her draft, especially the high frequency of sexual interactions and the variety of situations, obviously reflecting her own attitude and experiences within The Circle on the subject. Not objective enough, she later thought; rewrite required.

She planned to write the section on 'loneliness avoidance' that day, and maybe get a start on another section she called 'New Family Values.' One other thing that several of The Circle members had called to her attention was that almost no one of them felt they needed to be married for completeness or as recognition of adulthood. Other authors had called this low marriage centrality; she'd work that observation into her work too, plus it would give her an opportunity to quote yet another learned journal.

Earlier she'd written a couple of thousand words about how The Circle treated jealousy, and introduced the concept of compersion to the readers of the erudite paper in a whole section by that title. She'd have to edit that piece when she moved it into the main body of the report.

Each of The Circle members also flouted societal expectations about couplehood. In all her interviews, not one person had expressed a desire for a relationship withonly one other person of the opposite sex. To the contrary, monogamy and exclusivity were almost not welcome here, and with the advent of the reality TV show, the group was open about their feelings. Alice and Matt just had returned from the Boston area where they were coaching some of the TV-show fans about starting their own group; they planned to do this in other geographies too.

The Circle too had displayed a nearly wanton disregard for the paternity of the children. The concept of 'universal paternity' was adopted by all the men, and there were even 'universal grandmothers.' One woman, Tracy, unable to birth her own children after a tragic plane crash injured her. She called herself a 'universal mother,' and indeed when she was at the house, she cared for the children just as though they were her own.

Jess pondered her list and added a few more: communications, true equality between Circle members, and open-mindedness. She had a lot to say about each of those, and it would give her the opportunity to emphasize the tolerance when Marlene and Tina, ex-porn queens, had joined the group. Heck, it was more than tolerance, it was enthusiasm; ergo refer back to the section on rampant sexuality.

She had another on the list, but wasn't sure how to portray it. Everyone in The Circle freely gave of themselves and their wealth. For instance, when Matt and Nathan had won a multi-million dollar lawsuit withThe Courier over the drone incident, the first thing they did with the money was to buy the house and give it to the partnership that ran the Circle; later they paid for the addition that more than doubled the size of the dwelling. Others that benefitted in some way also gave freely of their wealth and worth. Zoey and Mike had done a commercial around the house and left a good chunk of the money in the house fund; that said, Mike did get a new truck out of the effort, and she got her car fixed.

Last, so far, was the love and respect that each person in the group felt for each of the others. The feeling usually transcended what she'd seen between husbands and wives in her counseling work. While those feelings were often there in the New Relationship Energy phase of a relationship, they often faded and even became jaded over time. This didn't seem to be happening with The Circle. The level of interest and enthusiasm about each relationship linkage hadn't diminished at all.

Jess leaned over and wrote the word 'BOOK' in large letters on her pad of paper. She just realized had enough material to write an even longer 'article' – so long that she may as well start to think of it as a book. The article would be the synopsis of the tome.

Jess looked up and there was Darrell with his camera focused on the pretty woman. "Hi Dar, are you setting out to embarrass me?" She laughed to tease him and leaned back in her seat.

"Not at all. You looked so sweet and studious sitting there." He put his camera down and went over by Jessica. He bent down and kissed her.

"Mmmmm," Jess purred. "What time do you get off work?" The tone of her voice left little doubt about the motive of her question.

"Around two o'clock."

"Come find me. I'll be right around here waiting."

* * * * *

The two couples were bumping hips in fun and laughing as they came out of the movie theater and headed for the municipal parking garage in the entertainment district of the city. Derek, Kyle, Ellie, and Tracy had gone on a double date to see the latest James Bond thriller. As with the other films in the Bond franchise, the stunts and chase scenes were over the top, and exceptionally exciting. Somehow each film just kept getting better than the last.

Kyle said, "Are we going straight home, or does anyone want to stop somewhere and get a beer or something?"

Tracy clapped, "Oh, I like that idea. Let's stop."

Derek and Ellie agreed.

The quartet trooped into the garage, using the stairs to get up to the third level where they'd parked. They kept rehashing some of their favorite scenes from the movie, and talked about the sexy costar of Daniel Craig. The garage was nearly full of cars despite the late hour in the Friday evening. Several fluorescent bulbs in the dimly lit garage flickered irregularly giving the place an eerie feeling. The four Circle members were anything but quiet, actually reflecting the last few minutes of the movie.

Derek and Ellie split from the other two to go between a row of cars heading for Kyle's beamer. Kyle seemed to rush ahead of Tracy on the other side of the same car.

From the left side suddenly came two youths with knitted caps pulled down over their heads so the caps almost hid their eyes. They'd popped up from between an adjacent car. A third stood and moved behind them also with his face partly covered by a knit cap. Ellie slowed to a stop in front of Derek. Her heart went into her throat as her head twirled between the goons. Derek moved forward past her to face the two men six feet in front.

As Derek cautiously moved, one of the men said, "Give us your wallets and cellphones. No arguments and everyone goes home happy and unhurt. Well, maybe. I know a couple of us would really like to get into this fine looking woman." He gave Ellie a look that made her blood run cold. "Maybe we'll take her with us and fuck her from here to hell. I bet she'd love to have all this cock." The grin on the thug's face was pure evil. He held out his hand for the loot, but eyed Ellie.

A fourth man suddenly pushed Kyle between the bumpers of a couple of cars so he was near Derek and Ellie, but off to the side. He apparently needed to demonstrate some toughness because Kyle almost fell from the shove.

Derek held out his wallet enticingly to one of the men in front. As the man neared, Derek acted as though he wanted to hand it to the man, but purposely dropped the wallet. The man automatically bent to pick it up, only to have Derek's shoe suddenly slam into his face at near the speed of sound, breaking his nose and crushing his jaw and one cheekbone. Blood instantly splattered the area.

"Hey, asshole. You want trouble, you got trouble," his second friend said as he immediately charged Derek intending to throttle his neck.

Derek moved to meet the man, but he turned as the last instant, pulling the man past him and hurling him through the side window of a nearby SUV. The window shattered in a thousand pieces as the man's head went through the glass. The man didn't move. He'd been knocked unconscious. More than a trickle of blood started down his face.

The third man behind Kyle grabbed at him, but Kyle sidestepped his move propelling him towards Derek. Derek reacted instantly, tripping the man so he sprawled on the ground like a rag doll. As the man rose spouting a series of violent threats against all of them, Derek kicked his legs out from under him with a sideways martial kick and a sickening snap to his left knee. The man screamed at the sudden pain, and fell back writhing on the dirty garage floor and holding his knee.

The fourth man behind the trio pulled out a handgun. "We should have just shot you to start with." He began to raise the gun to aim at Derek.

Ellie pleaded, "No. No. Here, take my purse." She thrust the purse towards the man and held it.

The man reached for the purse with one hand, but Tracy said from beside him where she'd lagged behind Kyle as they came into the garage, "Hey, do you like this stuff?"

Surprised at the fourth person in the group, his head turned, and Tracy hit him with two blasts of pepper spray right into his eyes and nose. The man screamed, and pulled the trigger on the handgun. The bullet hit the ground in front of him and harmlessly ricocheted away.

Kyle sprang at the man in his moment of weakness, kicking the wavering hand with the gun and knocking the weapon away and under a nearby car. He took careful aim with his fist at the side of the man's head, and threw a roundhouse upper cut. The thug was unconscious before he hit the concrete floor.

The whole attempted mugging had taken ten seconds or less.

Derek turned to Ellie, "Call 9-1-1." His voice was calm and deliberate. He turned to Tracy, "Nice move with the mace. Get the gun."

Ellie calmly whipped out her cell phone and called in their location, and that they had four thugs under armed guard after a mugging and attempted homicide.

Tracy found the handgun, and moved to cover the hoodlums as they regained consciousness.

Derek and Kyle manhandled the four men seated in a line against one of the cars to better cover them. The first was still spurting blood from his broken nose. The second was nearly delirious and bleeding from several places on his head where he went through the car window. His disguise cap was still in the car whose window he'd broken. The third couldn't walk, and was in great pain where his knee had been blown out. The fourth lay unconscious and teary, his breathing laboring though remnants of the pepper spray.

Five minutes later, two police cars with lights blazing squealed around the various curves inside the garage to the third level. Ellie flagged them down. Four officers emerged.

Tracy presented the first officer the handgun, carefully making sure they knew she was holding it by the barrel with the safety on. "Here. This belonged to the unconscious one. I used it to cover them, although I don't think we left them in condition to run away. He fired one shot; it hit the floor there and went off in that general direction." She pointed.

As the other officers started to handcuff the hoodlums, the large burly sergeant took the gun and said, "Start at the beginning. First, are the four of you OK?"

Ellie, Kyle, and Tracy looked at Derek. They were all unscathed, but the post-trauma stress was starting to set in. Ellie had gotten clingy and hung on Derek's shoulder.

Derek said, "We're fine. Officer, we were returning to my car over there from the stairwell when these four men stopped us and asked for our wallets and phones. They threatened bodily harm including shooting us and taking my date away to rape her, so we rendered them harmless, and have since waited for you to arrive. We are each skilled in martial arts, plus the women carry pepper spray. The gun was unexpected, but proved to be no problem."

The sergeant who had the name O'Reilly on his nametag, turned to the other cops, "I know these four jerks. We've wanted them for weeks. There's a warrant out on them. Let's load them up, and then we can get information from these kids and let them go home." The use of the term kids reflected the fact that he had at least twenty years on any of them.

After the hoodlums had been poured into the back of two police cars and some radio communications exchanged, O'Reilly got all the names, addresses, and information from the four members of The Circle. He also asked if they would mind talking to a detective the next day about the event, and obviously they were more than happy to comply.

Several other couples and singles passed through the garage, some stopping to watch the arrests and the police interviews. One man stepped forward, "Errr, officer, my name is Bruce Morris. I have something to contribute to your investigation."

O'Reilly looked at the man. "And what might that be?" he said in jaunty tone. O'Reilly looked pleased that the thugs were caught, and that they'd gotten a good thrashing to boot.

Morris said, "I witnessed everything. It was all their fault," he pointed at the men in the police cars. "I have it on my iPhone. I was standing over there taking a video of these four when they tried to surround them and rob them."

"And just why were you taking a video of them?" O'Reilly asked totally puzzled.

"Because they're TV celebrities. I recognized them from the show The Circle."

O'Reilly jerked his head around and studied Derek, Tracy, Kyle, and Ellie. He finally nodded, and was soon arranging for Morris to get the video to the police from his iPhone.

The Circle became front-page news again, or at least Derek, Ellie, Tracy, and Kyle did. The rest of everyone got haloed in because of the reality TV show.

Bruce Morris, the man who'd filmed us, sold the video of the mugging to a TV station (the same one Willow worked for) and a newspaper. No one could do anything but shrug. Everyone in The Circle was again a full of celebrities and the four on the movie date were front and center because they were in a public place when they got accosted and filmed.