Chapter 31 -- Independence Day
Dave looked next to him as he stood on the patio at the Meadows and from a few feet away got a highly contented smile from Joyce. She was wearing both parts of her patriotic bathing suit with both bra and bottom sporting a bold pattern of blue stars and red and white stripes. She was also wearing her jeweled flip-flops and had obviously had a pedicure because he thought her toes looked sexy with the red polish that matched her suit. He noticed she was wearing a gold anklet and a toe ring. They were waiting with all of the others from the Circle and Mark's group of friends and family for an interlude of dancing before fireworks would start when the night sky got much darker.
What made Joyce's presence particularly noteworthy were two things. That she was there at all had been an issue that she'd wrestled with, deciding again to come to the event at the last minute. Dave guessed that she'd decided that even if she had sex with somebody or somebodies, she wouldn't backslide to where her ex-husband had taken her -- a decadent and slutty lifestyle with near total submission to his outrageous and unarguable demands. His dominance had led her to the edge of life, and thankfully she'd run away from that edge.
Also noteworthy was that she was standing surrounded by the loving arms of Andy Martin who occasionally nuzzled into her neck with some kisses. Joyce had taken both his hands and placed them on her bra-clad breasts in an obvious invitation for what she hoped would happen later in the evening. Andy looked happy and devoted to the pretty woman who had been Dave and Alice's classmate in high school. He was slowly grinding his hips into her backside just as she pushed back against him. Dave could see her contented smile.
Andy was Mark Worthington's Number Two man at Worthington Industries. He really ran the whole operation with the help of a carefully groomed executive team. He was married to the sexy Margo who was elsewhere on the patio, last seen making out with Wolf. While Dave reported directly to Mark as he headed EneRG and the battery project, he tried to keep Andy in the loop because of the many linkages to other WI divisions, some of whom made consumer products Dave and JR wanted to 'electrify' with their innovative batteries.
There were a number of other pairings between the two groups. Nearly everyone from both groups had shown up: the Circle and Mark's extended family and friends. Over a hundred-fifty people were milling around. Some rock music started playing over the speakers adding to the din of conversations. A few people started to dance.
Dave had been totally surprised when a small band set up on one part of the patio. He hadn't expected live music. They'd started to play around with some of music as they tuned up and got aligned on the music. Dave then had heard a few riffs from the song
Texas Dawn
that Ashley had as her first platinum record. He thought nothing further, since the song was the Number One hit in the Nation for weeks before it had started to be pushed up the charts by other songs.
Seconds, later the band did a crescendo of
Texas Dawn
with the sound then blasting out over the crowd, and then a young woman in a very sexy sequined western outfit jumped up on one of the picnic tables on the patio, a spotlight from across the pool lit her up, and Ashley shouted 'Hello Circle. Hello Meadows.' into her microphone and then launched into an extended version of the song.
Everybody cheered. This was totally unexpected, at least by Dave. He glanced around and saw Alice, Ann, and Elsa standing together obviously gloating that they had pulled off having the country music star return home and make an appearance for the combined group without any leaks.
Ashley sang for an hour, seguing from one song to the next, and not even taking time to acknowledge the cheers and applause from the adoring group that clustered around her table.
Ashley did some sexy songs including an old song my Andrea True entitled
More, More, More; How Do You Like Your Love
. True had been a porn star before making the recording that became a big hit. Ashley did the song proud, and her bump and grind to the song was fabulous and brought the house down with applause and laughter at her erotic antics. Ashley's costume got briefer and briefer during the song much to everyone's delight, but she stopped short of nudity. Ash had seriously learned how to shake all the right parts on stage.
After her short concert ended a few minutes before nine p.m., Ashley sought out Dave and threw herself into his arms and smothered him in kisses. They promised to get together later. Ash also planned to be around the Circle until Wednesday, so she'd have time to be with her friends before she had to reenter her life as a hot and in-demand singer.
Ashley ran off to bid her band members goodbye as they left the party. She'd obviously not invited them to the more erotic side of things that would start after the fireworks. Dave did note that she held onto an older man and wouldn't let him leave; there was some intimacy there from their interaction. He figured he'd find out more about what appeared to be a romantic interest there either later at the party or the next day or so.
As the first rocket soared into the midnight blue sky and burst into a huge ball of sparkles, the crowd all vocalized a noisy 'Ahhhhh' sound at once. Most of the patio lights instantly dimmed, too; allowing the remaining fireworks to appear more brilliant.
Occasionally, there was some great combination of rockets, explosions in the night sky, and colors so that the group not only made vocal sounds of approval, but also broke into cheers and applause.
The fireworks show went on for twenty minutes, and then there was a huge ground display with Roman candles and other incendiary devices lighting up red, white, and blue as hundreds of firecrackers boomed into the night sky. The air smelled of cordite.
When the last of the display had finished, a different set of lights came on around the patio, providing a more muted setting. The recorded music also shifted to some more mellow popular tunes that invited slow dancing rather than the jazzier numbers that had been the hallmark of Ashley Steerman's concert and the music playing during the cookout.
Dave had cuddled with Alice Grace and KC during dinner and the fireworks. Alice Grace was an interior decorator, and had been responsible for the interior designs of both the Meadows home and the Worthington living quarters in their city condominium. KC was a highly sought after artist with a knack of putting paint to canvas in a way that made her large paintings in high demand. As far as Dave could tell the minimum price for one of her works was around fifteen thousand dollars.
Dave had perfected a technique to dance with two women at the same time and have it be romantic and intimate at the same time. He started to dance, and led Alice Grace and KC into the positions where they could be very close to each other. The kisses between them started and helped elevate their libidos and desire for one another.
The women in Mark's extended family were as inclined to play together sexually and romantically as the women in the Circle. Dave thought this fortuitous because both groups were biased in their numbers towards a slight over-population of women.
