By the time I turned thirty, I'd begun to feel like an old man compared to all the youngsters who worked for me. Since I had a bit of a delayed start in my formal education, even Bob turned out to be two years younger than me. Our earliest employees hadn't yet reached twenty-five, with the majority falling within a year or two on either side of twenty. A growing inbox of resumes waited for me when I returned each weekend from my Hat sales trips, from students in a broad range of studies looking to leave school early for "the educational opportunity of a lifetime." Our employees tended to gush about their experiences on social media without oversharing sensitive information, and a steady flood of the smartest of the smart was encouraged to come to join the Magick.
Part of my feeling old was recognizing the significantly different attitudes these young people had toward sex and relationships, especially young women. Most saw no reason ever to get married. Most had no interest in children, and if they eventually changed their minds, they'd have children. Even then, few had an interest in permanent relationships. Their work was their focus, in which I recognized the mindset of my wife, and to only slightly lesser a degree myself. They worked long and hard, and when they felt the need to play, they wanted to play. Not necessarily with the same partner, nor did gender appear to be a consistent preference. It was more a matter of availability. And they didn't want to answer to anyone else. I might have said when they wanted to let their hair down, except that none of them had hair for several years. I don't believe any of them went to the extent of wigs and things, but that's an assumption with no empirical foundation.
I learned of several datasets captured when couples decided to have sex, actual sex, wearing Magick Hats. I wasn't sure when there would have been few enough of their fellow employees in the basement for them to have privacy since most kept whatever hours they wanted, and some rarely slept. But, again, I tended to make assumptions based on the expectations of my upbringing. So, there likely had been an audience. In which case, I suspect there were those present as focused on the captured data as the fornicating mammals. "Look at those patterns of brain activity!"
Bob also informed me there were rumors of orgies in the attic. He hadn't gone up to confirm these reports. He was still largely his shy self and wasn't sure what excuse he'd have to explain his intrusion. And, he'd have been embarrassed to discover the rumors to be true. I figured it was my house, and I was the boss. I didn't need an excuse. I was going up to my attic for a look myself. When informed of the rumors, my wife insisted on accompanying me. If not preoccupied with establishing the truth of these rumors, I might have been frightened by the gleam in her eye.
Not quite to the top of the attic stairs, we observed a naked young woman walking across the common area from one partitioned sleeping area to another. Once in the attic, we discovered a couple having sex in one of the partitioned areas with the curtain left half-open. Another pair were having sex on cushions in a far corner of the common area, and in the dead center of the attic, a young woman was riding one young man while giving a hand job to another and a blowjob to a third. No one appeared to notice since they were busily engaged in their own activities. Beer cans and wine bottles were lying about, but I didn't see any condoms, either discarded or in use.
Several of these young employees of mine spotted us. They paused to see how we'd react, we being the adult presence in the room. I assumed they knew who we were. The girl riding the young man asked, barely interrupting her rhythm, if we'd like to join the party. I believe my wife might have done just that, not by herself with anyone else, but to hang out and have sex with one another with others having sex around us. She gave my hand an enquiring squeeze but could immediately tell I wasn't comfortable with the idea.
Other than still being my mother's son, I had matured enough to worry about potential legal issues, claims anything was non-consensual, or that they'd suffered emotional distress from their exposure to this highly sexualized environment. And none were using condoms. So, add the possibility of a house full of STDs, pregnancies, and young women requiring rides to abortion clinics to my concerns.
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The Words - An Autobiography
Ciencia Ficción"What if God was one of us?" Credit to Eric Bazzilion, and thanks to Joan Osborne for singing his brain-rattling words. Much earlier, my mother promised that if I applied myself, I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. Then, from somewhere, I r...
