Chapter 4A: More Aunts

The middle of a young story

I was not particularly looking forward to the fourteenth summer of my life; fate seemed set on balancing the book on my good fortune. Within a few months of my thirteenth birthday, I learned about masturbation and lost my virginity. My biggest sexual problem for the year was whether my mother had kicked my stepfather out that week, which allowed me to sleep in the same bed as Iris.

I became convinced my luck had ended when my stepfather and mother announced the 'family' would be spending the summer in Puerto Rico--an obvious attempt to save the marriage. Both were changing jobs and had the money saved to take an entire summer off.

My prayers proved in vain--my mother made it clear that I would be getting on the airplane with them. I was tempted to be unpleasant, especially after the twins said I could stay in the mansion, but did not know how it would pan out, so I settled for a grudging defeat with favorable concessions.

I wanted to be on the high school swim team with the twins. There was no question they would make it; they were better than me. When I asked the coach what I needed to do to improve my times, he designed a swim program for me to follow during the summer.

I had help getting the biggest concession; my mother was adamant about pool access during our vacation.

I would be attending, on 'scholarship', a private (meaning expensive) high school with the Smith twins. Marisa attended our grammar school on the same scholarship; everyone assumed she would attend the same high school eventually. Roger Smith set up the scholarship for us, and no one scrapped it after his death. My stepfather looked like he was going to fight the summer swim program until Marisa threw the maternal ancestor of all tantrums.

She was truly impressive. There was no heat to the tantrum; Marisa coldly used every trick in an eleven-year-old little girl's 'wrapping daddy around my pinkie' bag. Marisa was spoiled, and I had a heavy hand in her being that way; but the tantrum showed she understood we received the best education money could buy (not to mention Tia Rachel's great Birthday, Christmas, Three Kings' Day, Halloween, Easter presents or Tia Rachel only has sons so a few times a year she needs to take a certain little girl shopping for the 'joy' of buying girlie stuff) was my relationship with the Smith twins.

Marisa was not having any part of someone endangering the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed--daddy had to get over it!

Luckily, my stepfather's sister, Blanca, offered a workable solution. She worked at a university and arranged access to the necessary facilities by lying about the need to continue my 'Olympic' training. She also volunteered to drive me from the family farm to the university every morning. I would be able to practice, spend the afternoon in her place, and she would drive me back at night. My stepfather agreed but grumbled about it not lasting a week.

Nobody really understood; the twins and I were dependent on the united front we presented the world. My will was not an obstacle to completing the coach's program.

So my stepfather got his family vacation while I got my training and was away for most of the day. My stepfather probably liked the last part too.

Iris would spend the summer with one of my uncles. His wife was not having a good post-pregnancy, especially because their other child gleefully lived up to the Terrible-Twos paradigm. The last stumbling block was the school since my stepfather wanted to leave in the middle of June, a week before school ended. Marisa and I had stellar grades, and the school benefited greatly from Smith generosity so the path was smoothed for us.

Iris and I went a little sex-crazy during the couple of weeks before I left. We had sex every afternoon and an instant replay most nights. We slept in her bed, even with my stepfather staying in the apartment. It was the closest we ever came to getting caught. My mother seemed to have a blind spot when it came to Iris and me, and while my stepfather acted suspicious, he never trusted me anyway.

My stepfather and I came very naturally to our mutual dislike. I had not met a male relative of my mother who liked him: not her father, her brothers, or even a cousin twice removed. None of her female relatives liked him either: not her mother, her sisters, or even her brothers' wives. She also NEVER allowed him to discipline me. I was fairly tame but broke enough rules to deserve punishment here and there. She took care of it... most of the time. It became a very sore point when the twins and I got into their father's liquor cabinet. Roger Smith took us out to the woodshed. My mother accepted his actions, which caused a huge argument at home. It got ever huger, when my stepfather discovered my uncles were on the list of people allowed to guide me to a nearby woodshed if I became lost along the way. In fact, he was the only one without a key or possible locations to any woodsheds I might need to visit.

My mother did not allow him any fatherly role in my life. When I needed a male presence, she pushed me towards my uncles or Roger Smith.

"At least, his father was a real man!" were the words that sealed my stepfather's enmity towards me. She used them to end the first argument I ever heard about me.

All of this led to my stepfather having certain beliefs.

He believed my mother's allowances would make me a 'weak man'. He believed my mother was in a long-standing affair with Roger Smith and the friendship between the twins and I gave them plenty of opportunities to get together. He believed my uncles freely vocalized their negative opinions of him around me me. He believed I held him in contempt.

I believe if he had ever seen me interacting with my uncles, martial arts instructors, swimming coach, and Roger Smith, he would have known the first one was untrue. He also ignored the very good reasons he gave me, all on his own, to think less of him.

He probably would have caught Iris and me naked in the same bed the week before we left, if a fresh round of hostilities between him and my mother had not broken out. Those arguments forced living arrangements for the summer, which almost convinced me the fates took a certain voyeuristic pleasure in arranging the details of my sex life.

But something else happened before we left; Rachel and I had an encounter, which changed our relationship.

The twins invited me to stay over the night before I left. They were a little apprehensive about spending the whole summer with no one to run interference. The twins did not get along with other people; emotionally, they did not need anyone else. I never pushed it, but Rachel did and was rebuffed at every turn. After their father died, their guilt grew over the emotional pain their need for distance caused Rachel.

I enjoyed the dinner and playing video games until the twins went to sleep. I gave them time alone; their sexual maturity traveled a different path.

I sat in the kitchen staring out the window when Rachel came downstairs for a glass of water.

"Hey, baby... what are you doing up?" Rachel started calling me 'baby' during the comfort period after her husband's death. It made me feel like I was closer to her.

"Just thinking about the vacation," I said.

"The thought of Puerto Rico is depressing you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Those young Puerto Rican girls; you'll be hounded the entire summer. If you grow any more, they'll follow you back here."

I had a growth spurt that year, some of which Iris enjoyed a lot. My blush made Rachel to smile broadly.

"I like the thought of any girls--I just don't know why my mother is wasting her time."

"Some hearts have to try, baby," she said walking over and putting a comforting hand on my arm.

"Do you think she loves him?" I asked. Rachel stared at me and treated me like more than the boy I was.

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't, baby."

She looked sad at having to admit it. I remembered my mother's relationship with Rachel's husband and tried to think of something else to talk about.

"Well baby, if you think it's going to be a rough summer for you," she sighed, "think about how it's going to be for me."

I saw how much the admission that the twins and her needed someone else to connect them cost her. I looked down at the floor and thought about how far I could go to make her happy but not betray the twins' trust.

"Do you want some advice on how to make it better with the twins, Rachel?" I asked without looking up.

"Sure, baby. I'll try anything at this point," she replied. There was no conviction in her voice. I walked around the kitchen island until it was between us and leaned against the sink. I waited until she looked at me.

"You are not going to take the offer seriously, are you?" I asked. She wore a thin red silk sleeping gown and part of the reason I moved away was to avoid being distracted.

"Baby, don't take it that way; you're just..." she stumbled, trying to find a word which would not offend. "Young."

I could have been cruel and reminded her that she had not been able to cross the moat the twins erected against the world. Some of the other lessons about women my uncles gave me began to make sense though.

"How about we bet on it?" I challenged. I was too young to carry it off well, but youth has its own reserve of arrogance.

"A bet? Isn't that a bit childish?" she asked with just the barest hint of anger.

"I have to prove I know I'm right," I replied. She folded her arms below her breasts and gave me an angry look.

"I'm a fourteen-year old boy, and you're a thirty-year old woman. There's no way you're going to listen; you're already convinced I can't know better. I'm too young, right?"

She studied me. Her eyes changed expression, as if she were remembering something. She nodded for me to continue.

"I can't beat the age thing, but you'll listen if you think what I have to gain is something I really want," I said, meeting her eyes. "And if what I offer to lose is something I really don't want to, but could still answer your question if I did."

She looked confused, making me sigh.

"Say we bet... if I win, you get what you want but what I have to gain makes you think I'm going try REALLY hard to win. If you win, what I lose is something you think might get you what you want anyway, but that I'm going to try very hard not to lose."

"Baby, you have a good future as a lawyer or a mobster," she said laughing.

"Well?" I asked.

She shrugged, "A fourteen-year-old boy offers a thirty-year old woman a win-win situation, she has to listen."

"If at the end of the summer, you think you've got a better relationship with the twins, I win. If not, you win," I said laying down the bet. "But you have to be honest."

She nodded.

"If I win, I get a kiss, a REAL one," I said, proud my voice did not crack. Her eyebrows shot up. "I've had a crush on you for a long time, so you know I want that kiss."

Uncle lesson: the truth is a weapon few women can defend against. Rachel leaned on the island and stared at me.

"If I lose, I'll answer, truthfully, any question, any time, about the twins." My eyes bored into her. "The twins are my best friends, my only friends except for you. I would be betraying them, so you know I do not want to lose."

She continued staring at me.

"What made you like this?" she asked quietly.

"Hey... think of it this way," I answered, "Either I'm a fourteen-year old boy who thinks he has a way to steal a kiss, or I'm a fourteen-year old young man who can help but has to make you listen first?"

Her eyes softened as she shook her head.

"No, David," she said. "What you just offered isn't something a fourteen-year old with a crush thinks up. And fourteen-year old young men aren't that sympathetic. How did you get like this?"

Her voice was angry, but I did not know why. I stared at her; Rachel was the person who knew me best. I had told her, just about everything since I was eleven. Her reaction infuriated me. What right did she have to be angry when I was offering help? If she had been willing to listen, we would not have needed the bet.

I was still a fourteen-year-old facing the woman at the center of most of his sexual fantasies. My relationship with Iris had taken the sexual pressure of being a teenager off, but sexual experience was not sexual maturity. I had also been angry for a very long time.

"Marisa's room used to be mine," I said between my teeth. She pulled back, not to escape but aware of the danger. She nodded, having been in our apartment a few times. She never enjoyed it; my stepfather tried to flirt.

"Did you ever wonder why we switched?"

She shook her head warily.

"When I was eight, I heard my stepfather try to rape my mother. Both bedroom doors were open," I said, trying for an emotionless tone of voice and getting close. Her eyes widened; womanly instinct took over and she came around the island.

"I only say try, because I don't know if he did or not." I said. "I think he did. Do you know why she didn't leave?"

She shook her head again; I had stolen her voice.

"She didn't think she had anywhere to go," I said, the anger slipping into my voice. "Is that what it does? Make you forget you have family. I'll tell you what it did to me; I make sure my bedroom door is always closed."

I stared out the window; she put her hand on my shoulder.

"He hits her," I said. "I don't remember him doing it before that night."

Her hand slipped off my shoulder.

"I wish I was man enough to get between them when he does," I said, almost to myself. I could feel her tears. "She just takes it. No matter what it does to Marisa; she just takes it."

I swore I would not cry for my mother, and it had become much, much easier to hold the tears back.

"He knows," I said nodding. "He knows I'll kill him if he touches Marisa."

"Baby, no!" she said, finally finding words. I turned to her and smiled.

"Don't worry, Rachel. Other kids have it worse, right? At least, she doesn't let him touch me."

I wanted to wipe away her tears.

"She chooses it. I have accept that, but I choose this between me and her." She did not have to ask what I meant. Rachel and my mother had remote relationships with their sons in common.

"I won't allow me and my mother to be fixed, but I can help you," I finished. She met my eyes and nodded in acceptance.

I hesitated, thinking of how to get over the barrier of her motherhood.

"You treat Patrick and Sean different than how they see themselves," I said. She tilted her head.

"I get along with them because I don't treat them like Sean AND Patrick." She moved back and the anger returned to her eyes. I smiled; she would not want to accept what I had to say.

"You have to treat them like they're one person, Rachel."

"No!" the protest exploded out of her. "They are not freaks."

"I didn't say they were freaks, Rachel." She looked away, trying not to be angry with me for a truth she already knew. "That's who they are. Inside their mind, there's only one person."

She shook her head.

"I don't know why it happened. Maybe it is crazy, but I know they're okay."

She shook her head; the tears started again. I wondered about those tears. What was it that did not allow her accept the twins' psychiatric makeup; they had a bond no one but them really understood.

"If Sean does something wrong, punish both of them, and the other way around."

She tried to intimidate me with her eyes into silence. I got tired of her not listening. My anger escaped once more.

"How long do you think you could hold on to one if the other died?" I asked.

She slapped me!

I think she was more surprised than me. She gasped, and I turned away. I felt the pressure behind my eyes and could not stop the tears from forming.

"David..." she tried. I walked towards the kitchen door.

"David, don't." she tried again. I stopped in the doorway and half-turned towards her. I did not look at her, so that she would not see the tears.

"You accepted the bet, Rachel. You have to try, at least for the summer."

The twins were waiting up for me. I explained what had happened. They understood why I could not stay in the mansion. I waited until Rachel was asleep and walked home. It took a long time but gave me the chance to think.

I should not have tried to help knowing Rachel would have to change, but Roger Smith had learned at the end from observing me with his sons. It lifted some of the weight when his illness ran him down.

Rachel tried to contact me the next day. My mother wanted me to get on the phone, but I stood my ground so she had a long conversation with Rachel instead. For the first time, I wondered how the friendship between the twins and I sat with Roger's wife and his mistress.

I had a seat well away from the 'family' on the airplane and more time to think. We spent two days with my stepfather's brother. It was the home of the male cousin who initiated the sexual play between Iris and me.

Sex did not make me more mature, but not having to be a teenager about it gave me time to focus on other maturing experiences. It made the two days with my cousin uncomfortable. He was fifteen and had hit his sexual stride. He was not getting any, but he barely thought about anything else. He talked about his 'sex life' and described it in such lurid detail I knew he was lying out of his ass.

I had Iris on her stomach trying to find out how long I could hold out if I stroked deeply into her and came out completely. Not long enough! I knew what a girl looked like when the initial impaling was enough to get her off because she had been thinking about it all day. Fucking beautiful!

Iris provided sex whenever I wanted it and had a sexual appetite to match mine. My cousin talked, and it told me he had no experience with what he described or he would have done what I was doing. Kept his mouth shut so he did not lose it!

The drive to my stepfather's farm was a blessed two hours of silence. It was his mother's farm, but he talked about retiring there so much we called it his.

I had been taught how to show respect to his mother so as we approached the old woman on steps to the porch of the main house I knew what to do.

"Bendicion." Bless me

I was supposed to call her 'grandmother', but there was no blood between us and I refused to.

"Bendicion, mi hijo." Bless you, my son.

I let her touch my forehead. She knew what I had been asked to do and forgave the disrespect. I have always been surprised that the people who understand teenagers the most are seniors. Maybe they do not understand, but are just willing to accept that we have our own lessons to learn.

Marisa did not ask for a blessing; she hugged her grandmother as if it was not the first time they met. The old woman cried as she held her granddaughter tightly. I nodded, if Marisa was happy, the swimming program would be enough for me.

A woman in her mid-twenties came out of the house, and pulled Marisa out of the old woman's arms.

"Hello, Marisa. I'm Blanca, your Tia," she said smiling. My sister grabbed her cheeks and demonstrated the patent-pending 'You WILL love me!' kiss.

My eyes were drawn to the other person who came out of the house. She was my height with long, straight black hair. She had finely cut features and a body at the cusp of maturity. She had dark eyes filled with an innocence that called me.

"This is Carolina. She's also your aunt, Marisa," Blanca said. Marisa reached out as Carolina approached and planted another kiss on a willing victim.

Blanca had dyed-blonde hair and was unashamed of her dark roots. She carried herself with an arrogance, which trumpeted this was a woman that knew who and what she was. Two inches taller than me: a slim but athletic build with high, pert breasts qualified as perfect under the champagne glass rule. She had a pretty face, and looking around I realized why she was nicknamed Blanca. Her skin was significantly lighter than the rest of her family, especially Carolina who reflected in the latte range.

Blanca's eyes flared when Carolina kissed me in welcome. I tried to decipher what was behind their eyes. Carolina's held expectation when she pulled back; Blanca's changed from surprise to calculation.

Marisa's grandmother shooed us inside for a much needed meal. Blanca told my mother and me about arrangements she had made. The farm was located outside the suburbs of the nearest city. Blanca picked up Carolina during the school year so she was accustomed to the drive. She had talked to the university's swim coach. The school usually ran a summer pool camp so no administrative busybody would think anything of me being around. Blanca explained the coach was very respected and would be available if I needed help. I thanked her and thought I would be taking advantage of the offer since my coach had me practicing the four competitive strokes.

The first hint that the summer was not going to go as I thought came when the adults asked Carolina to show Marisa and me the farm. It made me suspicious, but I could not say anything.

Carolina was bright and cheery. I became convinced I must have been seeing things in her eyes after the kiss. She seemed like a normal sixteen-year-old girl stuck on a farm with visiting relatives, without the expected resentment.

The family worked with livestock, prize breeding bulls and pigs, rather than crops. One of the brothers lived on the farm and managed it. The money sent by my stepfather and the rest of his siblings helped. They had plenty of acreage, and I noticed a newly built house at the far end.

"My brother Jesus had it built," Carolina told us. Jesus was my stepfather's second oldest brother and also lived in the States. "It's finished, even has furniture in it"

"Why hasn't he moved in?" I asked.

Carolina shook her head, "He says he has to make more money. He wants to be sure there's nothing to worry about."

Jesus owned a successful carpentry business. Studying the house, I noticed the section that looked more like an addition than a part of the house. I figured it would be his workshop. He probably wanted to add to his retirement by making exclusive pieces. Having seen the quality of his work, I had wondered why he did not work only on commission jobs. He was certainly good enough to have supported himself with that.

Blanca found us near Jesus' house and told us we could come back. She looked almost predatory watching Carolina's incidental contacts with me on the walk to the main house. I did not think anything of those touches; Carolina was probably lonely for some teenage company considering everyone else at the farm had to be at least eight years older than her.

The tension in the living room almost choked me. They sat Carolina, Marisa, and me down and told us the living arrangements were going to be different than had been planned. I looked at my mother and stepfather. Their relationship had grown strained in the last couple of weeks, but I thought our arrival in Puerto Rico would smooth things.

I studied Blanca, who seemed to be the chosen bearer of bad news. I hoped Marisa did not understand what it really meant. Luckily, she seemed oblivious to the meaning behind Blanca's words.