Scene 8: 1987 to 1991 - Chicago and etc

Marisol happily attended the wedding. The parents of the groom had not been invited. Phil's choice of bride would never have been accepted. Though less than a quarter black and from affluence, Missy would have enough impure blood to be rejected by Phil's parents.

At first meeting, Phil intimidated the Taylors, including Missy. His largeness, what with the horrible encounter with Marisol's ex-husband, made them uneasy. The elegance of his attire and grooming gave them thoughts of him being some sort of underworld enforcer. But his charm and wit and gentle manner soon soothed their fears.

Multiple agendas promoted Marisol to ask the Taylors to invite her and her lover to dinner. She wanted to put her cards on the table about her true profession. She wanted to ask them for references with that in mind. She wanted to open up her friendship with Missy, the middle child whom she had gotten close to before her unfortunate marriage. They'd chatted on the phone many times over the years but hadn't seen each other since Julio's scary visit. And she wanted them to meet Phil.

Having them meet Phil had more than one purpose as well. Along with reassuring her old employers of her current happiness, escaping brutality into the arms of true love, she wanted Phil and Ben Taylor, the patriarch, to become not only friends but business associates. It would be quite a coup for Phil to enlist Ben's company as a client for the firm, his first as a lawyer. They had hired the young man immediately upon his passing the bar. Graduating at the top of his class at Law School in less time than usual, not only did he get hired by the top firm, they salivated at grabbing him up.

"Just one thing," Marisol explained on the phone to Naomi Taylor the beautiful half black wife of Ben and mother of Missy and two others when she invited herself and Phil, "and please let everyone in the family know. Don't mention my pregnancy."

"I don't understand," replied Naomi in her lovely, mellifluous voice. "You seemed so proud of your unborn child."

"I was and I am. It's Phil's child. He can't know. You probably won't understand. Just please..."

"We won't. I promise."

"If it's mentioned, I'll have to lie. I hate lying to my lover."

"Okay. But why take so long to come to us? We worried. Mystery told us your suffering and how in the last couple years you seemed much improved, but we worried about you and had grown to love you in your brief time with us. And we so much wanted to thank you for all you've done for her." (Mystery had been Missy's often used sobriquet, bestowed on her by Marisol for her hidden depth of character.)

"I love you too. You treated me better than anyone. I had my reasons, some of which I'll tell you at dinner or after."

Once the family realized Phil's true character, the dinner became a delight. Laughter and wonderful conversation made digestion of the delicious Filet Mignon easy. The highlight came when just as Marisol warned Phil the conversation moved to politics and amused Phil when mother took the liberal tact with the youngest son who resembled his father while father spouted conservative rhetoric, the oldest daughter, the spitting image of her mother, a true beauty who could have easily walked with supermodels siding with him. Missy, an odd combination of each parents' traits, took the middle ground. Her presence mellowed the divisiveness, her intelligence rising above the others.

Between dinner and dessert, Phil remarked, "I wanted to thank you all for your warm and loving embrace of my Mayan Queen. She's often spoken highly of you, and now I see why."

"It was our pleasure," spoke Naomi. Most everyone nodded. Only Sarah, the oldest child, kept her head still, her expression hard. Phil noticed. So did Naomi.

Finishing the delectable cheesecake, Missy hinted, "Father, I've heard you gripe about the slowness of your lawyers. You know Phil just got hired by a fine firm. He specializes in contract law."

Ben chuckled. "Okay my genius daughter, I'll talk to him. Could you follow me Phil?"

Leaving the women and the nine year old boy alone, Ben and Phil walked into Ben's office. Naomi looked coldly at her oldest daughter who responded in kind. The mother's expression warmed a little when she addressed her young son. "Sam, didn't you say you wanted to play with Frank this evening?"

"Can I go then?" he asked, excited.

"Be back by nine," she commanded.

"Yes mom." He started racing out the door.

"Sam, honey," spouted his mother. "Don't you think you should change?" The family decided to dress up for the dinner and Sam had worn his suit. He nodded and ran up the stairs.

"Say what you have to say," Naomi ordered Sarah.

"Not with her here!" Sarah spat.

"Whatever it is won't hurt me," said Marisol. "Please, just say it."

"Alright," grumbled Sarah with an evil half smile, her beauty taking a beating. "I just don't get it. I mean when I first saw Phil, I thought he was just another one of the slut's gorillas. Turns out he's probably more refined than Father. What's a whore like her doing with a gentleman? She seems much more suited for that Mexican bully. I'm going to tell Phil she had a bastard, prancing around shamefully pregnant and proud of it."

Naomi gritted her teeth. Marisol teared up. Missy stood from her comfortable seat beside her best friend, took a couple steps to her sister and slapped her hard.

"Ow! Fuck!" exclaimed Sarah.

Unfortunately Sam had begun his descent of the stairs. "Shit," he exclaimed.

"Sam," grumbled his mother. "Don't cuss. It's nothing to do with you. Go play with your friends."

"Okay Mom," he said and sprinted out the door.

Rubbing her face, Sarah commented, "Figures you'd take her side, Mystery. Mom, why do you let her stay friends with that Spic whore? She'll make her a whore too."

"Sarah!" yelled her mom.

"Let me," said the rounded, bespectacled sister, tall for her fourteen years, towering over her slim sister. "Yes, big sister, Marisol's my best friend, though I never see her. Do you know why she hasn't entered this house since Julio? She felt ashamed. Not because she'd been pregnant and had an illegitimate child, which by the way Phil fathered. Not because she's some kind of lowly Spic, which you so charmingly called her. And by the way, what does that make Mother? Or you for that matter, hunh? Or me, although I guess I'd pass." She said the last word in finger gestured quotations. "Can you say it?"

"Nigger," her sister muttered.

"That's right! No, it's because Julio frightened us and shamed her. And she married the..." Missy glanced at her mother who nodded with a slight smile, " ... asshole. Why? Punishment she told me. I love Marisol, but she can be a bit pigheaded sometimes. Yes, dear sister, I love her. No one else ever cared enough for me to dig me out of my shyness and self loathing. I know you tried Mom, but it took Marisol and her brilliance and understanding and her swift kicks in the head to let me see my beauty. Yeah I know you're the beauty in the family. But to tell you the truth, even though I'd look at you and look at me in the mirror and see the glasses and the chubbiness and the freckles and wonder where Mom and Dad bought me, I am just as beautiful as you. Now I feel even more beautiful than you. Marisol gave me that. And maybe more importantly she gave me confidence. She praised my intelligence while helping improve my grades."

"You didn't need me to..." Marisol began before getting interrupted.

"But I did. Okay, maybe I could have done well enough, but you instilled in me a confidence and a love of education. You made me want to be at the top of my class. Your friendship let me ignore the stupid envy of my so called friends, let me be brave enough to find friends who appreciated my intelligence, let me not care if the boys got frightened by me being smarter than them. She's the best teacher I ever had, Mom. And I want to be like her."

Sarah grunted a malicious chuckle. "See Mom!"

Missy shook her head. "You don't get it do you, you prejudiced ingrate? All you see is a dark skinned woman of low class with a pregnant body and no shame. But she's got more class than you could ever achieve. Not only is she beautiful and sweet and warm and kind, but she's a fricking genius! Yes I want to be like her. I want to be just as warm and sweet. Mostly I want to be just as intelligent. I want to teach school, Mom. I know it's not a lucrative profession, but..."

"I'd be proud, honey," said Naomi, smiling.

"Really?"

"Definitely. There are few more noble professions, especially if done caringly."

"That's just it. Like I said, she's the best teacher I ever had, and I want to teach like that. I want to get students to embrace learning, to find the answers on their own and celebrate finding them."

To Marisol, Naomi said, "I want to hire you as Mystery's tutor. I don't know how much I owe you already for tutoring my lovely daughter, but I plan to rectify that."

Marisol shook her head sadly. "She's my friend Mrs. Taylor. I could never..."

"I wish you'd call me Naomi." Marisol shook her head. Naomi shrugged and smiled. "I'll hire you to come here and..."

"Excuse me Mrs. Taylor. First off, I'm not feeling all that welcome." She gestured towards Sarah.

Naomi shook her head. "And to think, she's the one who could use the tutoring."

"I do okay," pouted Sarah.

"Why would you want to just do okay? It's like you don't care about getting the grades you'll need to advance in your future education."

"I won't need it. I'll find someone like you found someone."

Naomi held herself back from further reddening her daughter's face. "You're the one I wonder if your father and I bought someplace. Okay, your father noticed me because I'm pretty..."

"Beautiful," both Marisol and Missy corrected.

"Whatever. But you think he'd have married me if we couldn't talk to each other?"

"You said you met him because you were a model."

"I was a spokesmodel, Sarah. I was in college studying speech and communications. It broadened my modeling enough to get that job. I trained my voice..."

"You have a great voice, Mrs. Taylor."

"Thank you Marisol. The point is, to find a husband if that's what you want, you need to be more than a pretty or even beautiful face. You need more than a sexy body. Otherwise the men you attract won't want you to be more than eye candy and maybe a good fuck. In other words..."

"I'd be no better than Marisol," Sarah finished snidely.

"Fucking bitch," muttered Missy.

"Mystery!"

"Sorry Mom. All I can say is you wish you could be at the same level as Marisol let alone better."

"But I am like you describe, Mrs. Taylor. I wanted to talk to you privately with your husband, but with your generous offer paying me to tutor Mystery and all that you're saying, I might as well come clean. I was trained all my life to be a professional mistress, to provide my owner--and yes he would buy me like a car or the bed he'd fuck me in--with sex and companionship, both at the highest level. I would be his maid, but also his fuck. And no, I had no intention to seduce Mr. Taylor. He didn't buy me that way, but employed me as a maid and a companion for your children. My previous owner, my first, happens to be Phil's father. Unfortunately for me and Phil and his parents, Phil and I fell in love. I didn't seduce him. He didn't seduce me. I wish it never happened because it screwed up everything. But just as you can't stop a hurricane, we couldn't stop our love. Or maybe we could. Maybe we were both too weak or something. Point is we didn't. I love Phil more than life itself and I guess he feels the same about me. Because I'm who I am and he's who he is, I refuse to marry him. I will never have his child."

"But you already did," Sarah pointed out meanly.

"Did what?" asked Phil. He and Ben had only heard Sarah.

Sarah answered smugly, "Have your child!"

Immediately Missy threw herself on her sister, slapping her repeatedly. "I hate you, you bitch," she screamed.

Phil extracted Missy from her sister, feeling the surprising strength beneath her soft skin under her loose blouse. She immediately pressed her head on Marisol's lap. "I'm sorry for my family," she muttered, clutching Marisol's legs.

"It's okay, my sweet," muttered a deeply saddened Marisol, her hands sliding through Missy's wavy brown hair.

"What did she mean?" asked Phil on his knees beside them.

"I didn't want you to know, my big gentle bear. When I left your family, I was with child, your child of course. It miscarried."

"Why didn't you..."

"I couldn't. Like I said, I can't be a mother to your child. I would have put it up for adoption. I didn't want you chasing after it like you chased after me. As it turned out, I didn't need to worry."

"Was it Julio?"

"What do you mean?"

"He beat you."

"Maybe."

"I should have killed him. Maybe I..."

"You will not go near him," yelled Marisol

"Yes my queen."

In that house only Missy knew the lie. Sarah had no more ammunition. Seeing the anger of her mom towards her, and worse her dad's anger, and the love of her sister for Marisol, she remembered things. She remembered Marisol calming her after her first menses. She remembered the honest praise she gave her when she readied for her first date, how her eyes shimmered with love. Most of all she remembered that time, the time she tried forgetting and couldn't, when she met an older boy at a friend's party and he tried to rape her before she managed to escape, running home without panties and bra, ashamed and afraid, and Marisol hugged her for hours and whispered her love and assured her she'd done no wrong and explained to her the way men could be and that there still existed men who would treat her with restraint and love and not greedy lust. She looked at the big bear, Marisol's true love. He was such a man. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. Her eyes sought Marisol's and found them. "I'm sorry."

Marisol's sad smile nearly broke Sarah's heart. "You're forgiven, my love."

The mysterious Missy kept a secret from Marisol and a similar one from Phil. Seeing her best friend twice a week, sometimes three times when the two lovers shared dinners with her family, her friendship had shifted to lust. Finally, with Marisol leaning into her, those perfect breasts pressing against her shoulder, she couldn't hold back any longer. She turned and stared into those deep brown eyes and gently took hold of Marisol's head. Lips touched. Startled, Marisol tried moving away. Demonstrating her secret strength, Missy kept her lips near and resumed the kiss.

Two things relaxed Marisol. First, though only fifteen, Missy consistently proved herself to be far more mature than those years would suggest. Second, she loved Missy. She initiated the French kiss. Her tongue pressed against Missy's ultra soft lips and then the closed teeth until it found its mate. When mouths finally separated, they panted.

"Just a second," murmured Missy. She found and played U2's latest recording on her new fangled technology, the CD player. Turned up loud, but not too loud, it drowned out any noise the two might make.

Removing her glasses and setting them on the desk, she turned to Marisol. They embraced and kissed.

"Am I your first?" asked Marisol breathily. "You never mentioned..."

"Yes, my love. Is it that obvious?"

Marisol smiled. "Learning is necessary, even for kisses. Just relax your mouth."

More learning ensued over the next half hour. By its end, Missy lay naked and spread open on her bed, feeling more relaxed than she ever had. Marisol only gave her nakedness above her belt to play with. She stopped the play when she insisted she'd do the loving this time, giving the teenager two loud orgasms barely concealed by the music.

"You're going to tell Phil, aren't you?" asked Missy.

"You know I will. I tell him almost everything, except the details of course." Marisol's hands rubbed over Missy's plush body. Beneath soft skin, she felt the muscle. Missy had been developing a sexy body. Not the svelte curves of her sister, but more profound ones. Muscles and a lean abdomen came from vigorous, almost daily workouts. Marisol insisted she lose her plumpness early on in their relationship. Further toning and health had been provided by soccer for which she excelled, especially her vicious scoring kicks. Her breasts filled out to a provocative size, equaling Edie's luscious melons. Her butt had similarly filled, making the view from behind as she strutted most appealing. More than once Marisol had chuckled at Phil as he stared at those rippling hemispheres.

"You can tell him the details," said Missy, reddening again.

"Oh, so you want him too, you greedy hussy," observed Marisol, to which Missy nodded. Marisol sighed. "I'll talk to him."

"He probably won't want me. I'm not nearly as pretty as you."

"Au contraire my lovely. You're a knockout. And with your body and you're amazing skin, I can't believe every stud in class hasn't hit on you." She saw the subtle smile. "They have!"

"A couple."

"And?"

Missy rolled onto her side, still shamelessly naked. She patted the bed. Marisol lay beside her. "I have to admit I was surprised," Missy began. "I mean I catch some of the more ... nerdy of the boys watching me. But as unkempt as they are, they have as much chance as those cute and actually pretty smart jocks that asked me."

"So you're attracted to them."

"I imagine them when I'm you know..."

"Masturbating."

"Yeah. But guess who I imagine most."

"Phil?"

"And you. It's weird. Sometimes I feel jealous of Phil. Sometimes it's you. But then I realize both feelings are silly. And I want both of you ... together. That's my ultimate fantasy."

Marisol spoke carefully. "You can't have Phil." She kissed the look of disappointment away. "Let me finish, my love. You can't have him yet. First you're young and he's much older and that's dangerous."

"But you said I'm far more mature than my years."

"You are. But legally..."

"Yeah."

"And it would be risky, especially here. Not only would it compromise this family, both for legal reasons and because of the trust they've given us, but it would be easily discovered."

"What if I came to you? I'll be sixteen in six months. I'm almost positive Dad plans on giving me a car. We could meet at your apartment for tutorials. My sister will be done with high school, so she won't need Phil's help."

"How would you explain it to your parents?"

"I'll think of something."

Naomi noticed the change in her daughter over the next months. That day of confrontation, she noticed the sweet odor of sex. She confronted Missy in the perfumed room. "It's gone beyond tutoring and friendship."

"What do you mean, Mom?" Missy nervously replied.

"I wish you weren't such a mystery, Michele Amber Taylor. Please don't lie."

"I love her, Mom. She loves me too."

"And Phil?"

"He hasn't done anything."

"Is that your choice?"

"No."

"What if I never let them see you again?"

"I'd die," Missy said matter-of-factly.

"Look at me, Michele." She studied her daughter for nearly a minute. It seemed like hours to Missy. "Who initiated," she finally asked.

"I did of course."

"And how did she respond?"

"Uhm, hesitant?"

"Not a lot of objections."

"No Mom. She knows how old I am really."

"Except sexually, my daughter. You never..."

"No."

"It's always hard to tell with your children you know. But I figured..."

"You figured right, Mom."

"Until now."

"Yeah, until now."

They sat, Naomi on the chair, avoiding the sullied sheets. After a long silence she asked, "Your sister, did she..."

"Mums on that Mom."

"Please, just humor me. She's old enough to avoid my scorn. Any older men?"

"Just one that I know of. That didn't turn out well."

"What do you mean?" Naomi's eyes widened. "Did he... ?"

"No. Almost, but no. She learned."

"But why didn't she come to me?"

"She was afraid you'd think her a slut or something."

"I'd never..."

"I know. But she ... Marisol helped her."

"Marisol." Naomi lowered her head and swayed it back and forth. "It should have been me. What kind of mother..."

"You're a wonderful mother. If Marisol hadn't been there, Sarah would have come to you eventually, or you would have noticed her despair and come to her. But Marisol salved her pain and got her through it. Please Mom. I need her."

"She's done so much for you and obviously for your sister..."

"She's amazing, but she's not you. We need you too. You're so strong and so intelligent and such a great mom."

Naomi chuckled. "Sucking up, are you?"

Missy chuckled with her. "Couldn't hurt. But it's true. Honest."

'Okay. Could you promise me something?"

"Almost anything."

"I see. Okay. Promise you'll refrain from sex in this room with Marisol."

"How about some boy my age?"

"Is there a boy?"

"No, but I just wanted to hear your answer."

"There should be. Even a girl the same age as you would..."

"I'm not a lesbian. I guess I'm bi, but only for Marisol and ... Phil. But you didn't answer the question."

"What ... Oh ... I guess I'd be alright with it if you went slow and if you didn't you made sure you were protected."

"Okay. That's cool. Now if I were with a boy, do you think he'd think beyond his penis?"

"I'm sure some would."

"But most?"

"Probably not."

"But if a boy, say an older boy, maybe even a man, had a unique and total experience with pleasing a woman, who learned to please women by a woman who happened to be the most skilled lover in the world, wouldn't he take care to give me the greatest pleasure possible? Wouldn't he be patient with me and not go beyond where I wouldn't want him to go. Would he, a man who loves me, ever even consider the possibility of hurting me?"

"You're talking about a man who got Marisol pregnant."

"Put me on the pill, Mom."

"Yes I will, and not because of Phil."

"Thanks. But I'm afraid Phil will be the only man to reap the benefits."

"You know it's statutory rape. Even with Marisol..."

"I want them, Mom." Missy sounded whiny for the first time in years.

"Give it time, honey. You haven't been sexually aware very long. You're young."

"Okay. I won't make love with Marisol for awhile. But when I become sixteen..."

"That's less than two months!"

"That's an eternity for a kid!"

Somehow they laughed. "How about we review the situation then?" Naomi suggested. "Is there any boy you're interested in?"

"Not really."

"Meaning slightly?"

"I guess. There's one who asked me to the dance next Friday. He's pretty cute."

"Go with him. See how it goes. Keep your mind open."

"I know..."

"Just humor me Mystery."

"Jeez Mom, it sounds like you want me to have sex with some kid to avoid sex with a real man."