Well, that was a year ago last week. Kate and Mark have settled into a fairly swinging lifestyle, but they'll be canceling that in a couple of weeks. They've decided to have another baby. I hope like hell it's a boy. Mark's gotten his drinking under control and is back at work for some financial wire service.
Dolores settled down nicely, though at Christmas dinner she made it clear she was wishing for an encore. Irene told her it would be okay only if she made the honors list at school. Kate tells me she has never seen Dolores study so hard.
Kate and Mark and I have agreed that it was nice – that one time, but not really a good idea for us to get together like that again.
Bonnie and Irene get together whenever they're both in town. Sometimes I join them; mostly I don't. Sometimes Bonnie and I get together alone, but not often. It's just lust with us; like being hungry, the more you eat the less you need.
I don't join Bonnie and Irene primarily because when Irene and I are together, we get totally caught up in each other, which can leave a third party feeling like exactly that – the third party at a dance.
But I don't mind the two of them getting it on without me. They have something special and loving and it doesn't threaten me. It was only when I felt absolutely sure about it that I proposed to Irene, and only when she was equally sure that she accepted.
Penny and I have stayed close. She occasionally has a "date," (Kate has some pretty stringent restrictions on that) but seldom more than once with the same guy. Fellows her own age aren't sufficiently educated to keep her interest and older guys "just start growing hands all over the place." But every week or so, she'll come by my place in the city and destroy me at Scrabble or chess. We'll talk about all the stuff we've always enjoyed and sometimes she'll confide in me. Once in a while, she'll remind me that she's going to be gunning for me when she decides she ready, but I don't think she really means it. A shame, in a way. She's blossoming rapidly and is gorgeous little fox, sexy as hell. And she's no little kid any more; she'll be teenager in a few weeks. I'm going to have watch my step around her.
In the meantime, she's gotten into computers and programming and I think she's probably become quite a hacker. (I still know just enough to use the word processor and database and spreadsheet and sometimes get the modem to send stories to magazines or my publisher; Penny's been a big help with that).
On the other hand, it's also meant I had to learn how to encrypt some files – like this little diary – so she can never get into them. I shudder to think what would happen if that imp ever got into this file! Fortunately, the security on this file is totally unbreakable.