Dorsai - Full Circle

With that to occupy their minds, they were all pretty well absorbed in their own thoughts until it was time for them to go home.

The next time they were to come over, Kelly and I were both pleased to see that all five of them had decided that they wanted what we had to offer.

Over the few meetings after that, we slowly got the girls used to the ideas that we had warned them they would have to start applying. To help things along, Robyn and Susan each joined us for a single session to not only give the girls an additional perspective, but to reassure them that what they were learning really did apply to living a "real life". There seemed to be something about Robyn sitting there with a badge on her belt and a gun on her hip as she told them how Kelly – and particularly I – had helped her so much; and how what she'd learned from me made her so much more effective as a police officer. Similarly, Susan – who had recently made the front pages in getting a man who was physically abusing his wife and sexually molesting his three daughters put in prison – telling them how her friendship with the others, and what she'd learned from me, helped her so much in being able to help the people that she worked with had a definite impact on them. In both cases, the parent that brought the girls over had the chance to meet Robyn or Susan, and got the chance to learn for themselves that Kelly and I were trying to help.

It was just a couple of weeks before the end of school when we got a call at home one night – from Candice, who was on her way to another part of the country to do a story. Naturally, she was politely informed that she would be staying with us. Whenever she had a few days to spare, she would come to town and stay – usually with Kelly and me, but sometimes with one of the others. Kelly and I quickly made arrangements to pick her up at the airport.

She arrived early on a Wednesday afternoon; Kelly and I were both working on a project for one of my clients, and were only able to take enough time off from work to pick her up at the airport and take her home – where Marilyn was eagerly awaiting her arrival. For some reason, the two of them had a particular fondness for each other – when the two of them would cuddle on the couch, I found the contrast between Candice's fair-skinned, platinum-haired appearance and Marilyn's dusky, dark-haired form quite erotic. In any event, Kelly and I knew that Candice would be well taken care of while the two of us finished up at the office.

When we got home, we didn't have any trouble finding out for ourselves that such had been the case: the door to Marilyn's room was closed, but after we knocked and heard a soft "Come in!", we could see the two of them naked, their arms and legs intertwined as they held each other – each of their faces glistening with the other's juices. Kelly and I smiled at them, and Kelly asked Candice if she had any preferences for supper – we could see that she'd had her 'dessert' already! Both of them laughed, and she told us that she'd been eating in so many restaurants of late that something simple and home-cooked would be wonderful. Closing the door again, Kelly and I quickly decided that grilling some burgers would be just the ticket.

The kids got home from visiting their friends on the way home from school, and were delighted to discover that their Momma Candice was visiting. By that time, they knew that Candice wasn't their mother, of course; but they'd called her – and the others – their "Momma " since they'd been old enough to talk.

Supper that night was a particularly noisy affair: Candice had to tell us what she had been doing between bouts of telling the kids stories about the places she'd been and the things she'd done. When we were done, we four adults went into the den to talk; one of the unpaid chores the kids had was to clean up after supper. Kelly, Marilyn, and I had worked out a system that one of us would cook, and another would serve while the third took a break before rotating the duties the next day. The kids were always charged with cleaning up after meals, along with a few other unpaid regular chores. Each of them received an allowance for any extra duties that they did without being told. So as Daniel and Janet cleaned up, the rest of us had a chance to talk (quietly) amongst ourselves.

When the kids were done, they joined us; Candice excused herself to go and get the presents she'd brought for them. She always brought them something, but Kelly and I had taught them to be too polite to just ASK for gifts. When she came back into the room, it turned out that during a recent trip to Japan, she'd pick up a Japanese scroll for each of them. Daniel's was of a rather fierce-looking samurai waving a sword around (delighting him), while Janet's was a more delicate cloud and mountains scene. Both of them thanked her without prompting (something that didn't always happen), and let Marilyn take them back to their rooms so she could help them figure out where to hang the scrolls.

When they were gone, Candice looked at Kelly and me and said "Every time I come here, it seems that they've gotten so much bigger, and so much more beautiful, and so much smarter. I think I must be almost as proud of them as you are!"

Kelly and I laughed before Kelly told her "Almost!", and getting a laugh in return.

After a moment, Kelly told Candice about the girls that we were 'tutoring', and when she was done, Candice said "So when do I get to see them?" Kelly and I both knew that if Candice was there when the girls came over, she'd want to talk to them, too; I told her that they would be over the following Saturday. Satisfied that she'd have her time with them, Candice smiled at us and said "I've missed you – both of you." That was all the excuse Kelly and I needed to go over and give her the kind of welcome home kiss that we hadn't dared give her in public.

Kelly was still kissing her when Marilyn and the kids got back; seeing Kelly or I kissing one of their Mommas wasn't anything new for them – we'd explained to them that all of us were very special friends, and that special friends like us did things like that. Both kids knew that all of us loved them – they should, since we told them so often enough – so seeing Kelly and Candice kissing like that really wasn't any big deal for them. Marilyn told Kelly and me one time that she'd asked the kids about it, and had been surprised to find out that they actually thought it was nice: seeing us all kissing because we loved each other reassured them that we loved them, too.

The six of us spent the evening watching television, of all things. Daniel and Janet took turns between sitting with Marilyn (whom they simply adored) and their Momma Candice. They even spent a few minutes with Kelly and me, telling us that they wanted to make sure that we didn't feel left out.

When it came time for them to go to bed, neither one made any fuss; Kelly and I had agreed early on that no matter how much we loved them, it was still necessary for them to understand that we were going to be firm with them, too. Both kids knew what the "ground rules" were, and that none of us adults was going to let them break them. They'd also learned early on that a command from any of us was a command from all of us; it had taken getting caught trying to play us off against each other just once for them to be cured of trying it again. Basically, we provided them with a loving, safe, stable environment with clearly defined boundaries, and they thrived in it. They were free to make mistakes, but encouraged to ask us questions and talk to us so that they didn't have to make those mistakes. They were praised when they did well, and punished when they did something wrong – and they always knew that we loved them, no matter what. Throughout it all, though, they were free to just be kids.