Dave started to think he should buy one of the paintings before the price went up any higher.The second interesting thing surprised him in two ways. T...tiana was teaching her undergraduate robotics class using the Circle’s core classroom. She had a dozen students and had filled the white board with mathematical equations and a few diagrams. He’d never seen her teaching on-site before.More of surprise was that in the class sat his step-children: Matt and Rose. They were taking notes and looking. One particular talk that I remember addressed the subject of masturbation and he told us that if we were normal we had probably been masturbating for a while and that it was pretty likely that we’d also done it in a group of other boys because that’s the way boys are. At this point he told us that we might think that this meant we were queer but he assured us that this sort of thing was perfectly normal and that within a short while we would discover the pleasures to be found with girls and our. I was a touch shocked and called Joan to verify what I had received was correct. She just laughed and suggested, along with the encouragement of everyone else, that I go shopping. I did, but fifty thousand dollars is difficult for me to spend.Charlotte and Lawrence continued to use their aliases even though everyone knew everyone by name. Like Alexandria, they suggested that I find an alias too. I didn't like it but I understood the need. If someone knew my real name, they could control me with. Eventually I’ll need you all to come to the studio in your small groupings so I can do detailed sketches instead of the kind of general stuff I’m doing today. But you’ll all get an individual drawing out of it, too. I’m sorry I can’t pay you, but that’s the life of a starving artist.” Everyone laughed.I went back to the easel, and did another quick sketch, more to get them relaxed than to actually record anything. I put a fresh sheet of paper on the board and stepped around to approach Rio. I’d.