Author's Note: Thanks for your patience. The longer chapters take a bit more planning and curating. But I think you're all enjoying them as much as I do. Please enjoy this one!
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For a couple weeks after the swinger party, the whirlwind of events we had been caught up in finally calmed down. Rita continued her substitute gig as a weather girl again, but it was apparent she had gotten tired of being back under the hot lights of the set. She had a couple more weeks to go, but she was already eager to step out of the spotlight.
Jess was wrapped up in a lot of Daydream activity, which was a welcome distraction from the ongoing Infinity drama in Houston -- although that would soon come to a close. Daydream was producing a feature-length film every two weeks now, with two web vignettes posted every week. The new talent lineup meshed extremely well, and there was a burst of creativity in the company. At the same time, the launch of Daydream Fantasy companionship packages had exploded. And not entirely in the way we had anticipated. As predicted, the girls were extremely popular among Infinity's established clientele. What wasn't expected, however, was the Infinity men became a hot commodity at discreet bachelorette and swingers parties.
But that infusion of Daydream Fantasy into Infinity also had a modest ripple effect on the regular girls, who were getting less work -- a modest decline but noticeable enough. But Jess had an easy solution for that, similar to what she had previously implemented in Houston. She simply bumped up the regular lineup's share of appointment fees and increased their bonus structure. The downside of that was that Jess was taking less of a cut, and it was a significant enough reduction that we put the topic of whether she should stay involved with the agency on the table for discussion.
There was one other major development with Infinity that was a product of the demand realignment that had occurred. Crystal and Bianka decided to retire. Jason was making more than enough money for all of them now, and the two of them were devoted to carving out a happy life in LA for all three of them. It had been a bombshell, but one we'd quickly gotten used to.
On top of all that, two other things had taken off. First, Riley had followed through on her promise to introduce Katie to her voice coach. And Katie had begun twice weekly sessions with her. Katie had such an honest and immediate passion to become a "real" singer, as she described it, that all of us were impressed with her focus. At the same time, we teased her about trying to keep her talent a secret from us.
Second, Kat was preparing her first harvest from six marijuana plants she had grown, the maximum allowed for personal use under California law. After our getaway to Napa, she had become fascinated by gardening. From time to time, she and Jess still made their own edibles, and she thought it would be fun to grow our own weed. So she had set about it with enthusiasm and rigor. Now, we were a few days away from gathering what Kat estimated to be more than two pounds -- about forty-two ounces -- of bud from her first attempt. She had chosen banana kush because it was supposed to be easy to grow, and that deduction had been proven correct.
While we had a lot going on -- as we always seemed to -- it had been a great couple of weeks to slow down a bit and reconnect with just us. Of course, we never could sit still for that long. And, after Henry and Riley's surprise visit to our swingers party, the girls had kept up with Riley, and Jason and I had kept up with Henry. In particular, I had initiated discussions with him and Petey about his desire to explore movies.
So we had set up a dinner party, inviting them to join us, Juliet and Melanie, and Jason, Crystal, and Bianka at our place. We could talk a little business, but we could also bring Henry and Riley into the fold of our group some more, since they had indicated a greater comfort with taking things slowly. They were welcome additions, and we were looking forward to an opportunity to explore this budding friendship.
Kat had made the brilliant suggestion of making it a supremely casual pool party, with plenty of weed and simple food. Very simple food. Street tacos, to be exact, from a taco truck at Venice and La Brea she loved, especially for its al pastor. It was perfect.
Because we were untethered by work at the moment, we decided a mid-afternoon start time on Wednesday would be ideal. "Why not?" was the full extent of our thinking. We did it because we could. It turned out to be a remarkable day.
It was a stunning late summer day in LA. The sun shone, and the smog was barely noticeable. Our pool was a perfect 87 degrees, and my girls were perfect visions in skimpy bikinis. They loved the sun and were soaking it up in earnest. I divided my attention between enjoying the weather and leering at the tempting sea of flesh surrounding me. The girls had favored variations on string thong bikinis by Los Angeles Apparel that summer. They were sexy, revealing, and retained a bit of design flair that the girls liked.
We started the day off slowly, sipping on rosé and Champagne and smoking a lot of weed from our hookah. Well, except for Katie. She still didn't smoke, and she had even dialed back on cocaine since she started her singing lessons. But, with a week off before her next session, she was all-in on making it snow in sunny Los Angeles today.
We were pleasantly high and tipsy by the time Juliet and Melanie joined us, shortly after lunchtime. We smoked some more and played a little grabass in the pool until Jason arrived with Crystal and Bianka.
"I like this ratio," Jason said as he greeted me.
"We might have a chance," I said with a laugh.
"Carly wants a meeting next week," he said. "Get things moving."
"Awesome," I said as I poured out two bottles of rosé to keep everyone satisfied. "This is going to be big, one way or another."
We toasted glasses and admired the shimmering water filled with gorgeous, bronzed bodies.
"So, uh, what's the situation tonight?" Jason asked. "Is this like the last party or what?"
"I mean, I think so," I said. "That's the intent. We kind of wanted to have a more mellow introduction to things for Riley and Henry, you know, ease them into it."
"Sounds like fun," Jason said, but I knew there was something behind it.
"You know how it goes, brother," I said. "I just let the girls drive it. If they want to play, I'm down to play."
"It still just feels a little weird to, you know, come over and have messing around with, well, anyone be on the table," he said, a touch awkwardly.
"That's basically right," I said. "That's the dream." And I added a little laugh.
"But, I don't know, I guess I mean," he said, "like it's not weird that I fucked Kat?"
"You used to pay to fuck her, you know," I said.
"Yeah, but, I guess, this feels a little different," he said.
"Did it feel different?" I asked, poking at him a bit.
"Not really," he admitted.
"Do you want to fuck her today?" I continued.
"Well, uh, sure," he said. "If it works out that way."
"If she wants to, go for it, man," I said. "That's how this works. I've had more time to get used to it, and we haven't really talked about it all that much."
"True," Jason said.
