Chapter 3 -- Kristen's Request

I'm not tryin' to be your hero,
'Cause that zero is too cold for me, Brrr!
I'm not tryin' to be your highness,
'Cause that minus is too low to see, yeah!

--Nothin' From Nothin' (Billy Preston)

As it happened, we didn't actually fuck when we got to Kristen's house. Instead, we ended up playing gin in Kristen's playroom.

Kristen's playroom was actually an apartment that was over the garage at her parents' house. It had a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom and was probably big enough for a married couple to live in comfortably. Actually, the only part of the building that was being used by the Swifts was the actual garage, which housed two of Kristen's father's cars and Kristen's Camaro, and Kristen's playroom. There were other apartments unused in the building.

The walls and furniture of the playroom were beige and brown, and the motif followed with slight variations throughout the entire apartment. For example, the kitchen had more yellow accents, and the bathroom was brighter, like an ivory color.

Kristen's playroom was a place where she could get away from it all. Before I came into Kristen's life, she told me she mostly played board games and cards there with her older brother before he left for college. Alone in the playroom, she would play solitaire or curl up on one of the overstuffed chairs and read a book. Kristen also had a Pong game console for her television that she played with occasionally.

Since the two of us started going together, we found ourselves referring to the place as our own, as opposed to just being Kristen's playroom. Each of us had long ago decided on our favorite chairs or pillows in the living room and the kitchen, and we even had our own sides of the bed when we would sleep together. I never for once actually considered this place as mine, actually, but Kristen took to calling it "our" playroom, and the idea stuck.

When we got into the playroom, we both saw a deck of cards on the cocktail table, and we instantly decided to play cards. From playing against Kristen, I was starting to learn more strategy in the card games we played. Due to the fact that card games still had an element of luck in them, I occasionally found myself winning, although pretty infrequently. Kristen was really an ace at every card game we've ever played.

We found out early on in our relationship that playing cards allowed us to talk, and we found out lots of things about each other during those games.

As we played gin, I asked Kristen about her parents. "Kris, can you tell me why your parents don't seem to mind you dating me? After all, I'm younger than you, and they know that we're sleeping together."

Kristen started dealing a new hand and said, "Well, Mom is a bit older than Dad, so it's not that strange to them."

"Sherry said something about me only being interested in your money. Surely your folks might suspect the same thing."

Kristen actually laughed. "Jim, with those tickets, you could probably get me to give you all the money I have and I'd probably be happy doing that for you, even without any tickets. You haven't done anything like that."

"But I let you pay when we go out," I said.

"That's only because I have money. Who pays isn't really important."

"But others..."

"Fuck the others," Kristen said. "I have the money, so I pay. It's simple as that. I don't tell you how to run your jazz band rehearsals and you have never asked me to buy you jewelry or anything else that I can recall. You don't have much money, and you should be saving up for college. You are lucky that you don't have to work at Jack in the Box or at some pizza joint to earn spare cash."

I wasn't too convinced, but Kristen continued.

"Look, at the mall, when you got that bracelet for Merry, I didn't insist on paying. You paid for it, and because you did so, it meant more as a gift to Merry. Right?"

"Well, of course!"

"It works the other way as well. Dinner isn't a big fucking deal!"

"I was just worried that your parents might think I was after their money."

That got a big laugh. "Their money? They have their will set up so that if anything happens to them, all their money goes to Will!"

"Will? Do you mean your brother?"

"Yeah. I don't need their money. They know it."

I looked at Kristen as if she had two heads.

Kristen looked confused for a few moments, and then said, softly. "Oh. I never told you."

"Told me what?"

"Wait a second..." Kristen said, looking at the cards in her hand and picking up my last discard. "Gin!"

"Fuck! Stop changing the subject!"

I didn't bother counting my points. I was way over the point total.

Kristen pushed the deck away and smiled. "Look, Jim. We've established that you aren't after my parents' money. Isn't that correct?"

"Yeah."

"How do you feel now that I've told you that I won't be inheriting anything from my parents? Maybe the house--I think that Will and I will split that, but he's not going to be moving back here. I get Mom's jewelry. Most everything else goes to Will."

"It doesn't sound fair, but you don't seem to want it. Is that what you're saying?"

Kristen nodded. "Yes, honey. Does that upset you?"

"No. I guess not. I guess I better go to college and land a good job so I can support us."

That elicited a smile from Kristen. She opened up the cocktail table and deposited the cards inside. "Ever play Uno?"

"Uno? Is that French?"

"The word is Spanish, silly! It's basically Crazy Eights with a special deck."

"I'm game."

"With two people, it's a quick game. It's killer with four. I should think of it when Patty and the others come over. I have about eight decks. I even have special rules when we have lots of people."

"How about the normal game?" I asked, leery about Kristen's "special rules."

Kristen explained the basic concept of the game to me. I caught on quickly, and we started playing. Since strategy didn't help much with only two players in this game, I figured that for once, I might even have a small chance of beating Kristen at cards.

"Jim?" Kristen asked after I won a round.

"Yes?"

"You're really willing to support me?"

"I'd sail to the moon for you, my Goddess!"

Kristen swooned. "You are pretty romantic. You should write stories."

"I have enough trouble writing music arrangements. Why would you ask if I'd really support you? Of course I would."

"I have expensive tastes. I've grown up with all this," Kristen added.

"I'd have to be a pretty serious composer. How much does Leonard Bernstein make, anyway?"

Kristen giggled. "Jim Crittenhouse, ace composer."

"Yup. West Chicago Story, starring Kristen Swift as the Goddess. And Jim Crittenhouse as Tony."

"Most musicians don't earn much. You know that."

I nodded my head. "Is that why you're suggesting that I write stories?"

With a shake of her head, Kristen disagreed. "No. You are very sweet and romantic. What would you do?"

"I'd love you with all my heart, my fair lady. We'd live on love and happiness."

"No idea, huh?"

"Nope. We're young. We have our whole lives in front of us."

"What if I told you money wouldn't matter?"

I sighed. "I've been trying to tell you that."

"No. You were trying to say that we'd learn to live and love without it. I'm saying we wouldn't have to live without it."

"We'd borrow it from your brother?"

"No. In fact, if anything, he might borrow money from us."

"I'm totally confused."

"In three months, my inheritance is officially mine."

"You've been talking about inheritance. You said you aren't inheriting anything. I'm getting confused. Are you just confusing me to get my goat?"

"No," Kristen explained, her face serious. "And I'm definitely not kidding, either. Will inherits most of my parents' money."

"Even if your parents die in three months, then, you don't inherit anything other than the house and some jewelry, you said."

"Yes."

I was now confused. Didn't somebody have to die for someone to get an inheritance? Kristen seemed to be intentionally confusing me. I really didn't give a damn about her money, really.

I started to play another hand. If Kristen was going to explain herself, that she could do it. I started concentrating on my hand, which had a couple of Draw-Four cards in it. It looked like I was going to win another round.

"Jim, I turn eighteen in three months."

"So?"

"I've already received my inheritance, but it's in a trust fund."

"But your parents are alive, and you're not inheriting anything from them."

"Yeah," Kristen said seriously. She put her cards face down on the table. "You see, my grandfather on my father's side was the one that made the family fortune. My father and he had a bit of a falling out years before I was born, and they didn't speak to one another for years."

"Sounds like Mom and my real dad," I said.

"Well, my grandfather died right after I was born. He had a heart attack, I think, or was it a stroke? Anyway, in his will he had left his money to his wife, who had died a few years before he died, and any living blood relatives with the specific exception of my father. I was, and still am, the only living relative, so the money is now in a trust fund. I get a stipend from the interest of the balance, about two hundred thousand dollars a year, but my mother has it mostly reinvested back into the principal. American Express and my "allowance" come from that, and it's nowhere near that amount. I get control of the fund when I'm eighteen, although there are some stipulations that prevent major withdrawals until I'm twenty-one, and there are some investments that won't mature until I'm twenty-five."

"You mean..."

"Yeah. The money is in a trust account, looked over by a bank selected by the executor of my grandfather's estate. My dad had money from before my grandfather died. Up until recently, we only used my trust fund for collateral on the loan on our house, but Dad paid that off many years ago. In addition, I bought the apartment where Will lives in Cambridge and promised to pay for his first four years in college. My money's just sitting in a bank earning lots of interest right now. As I said, the bank pays me an 'allowance' of sorts on an annual basis, but I have never really needed much of it. Since my parents already have plenty of money, my mother arranges for the American Express card and some ready cash for me and we redeposit what I don't need. If I really needed money, I could actually get about sixteen thousand dollars a month. Of course, the interest rates may have changed, and the principal is now larger, but you get the picture."

Something didn't add up. "You said that you were the only relative, Kris," I pointed out. "What about your brother Will?"

"Will's not a blood relative," Kristen explained. "My parents didn't think that they could have children, so they adopted Will. Then, a year or so later, I was born." Kristen shrugged. "I guess they were able to have children after all. As it stood, I was, and still am, the only living blood relative. I have an Aunt Honey, but she's a friend of my parents, and not really a relative. I don't even have any cousins. It's just me."

"I didn't know that."

"Will has been more than a brother to me. He was also my best and only friend for the longest time. I know I told you that he was my first... the first guy I had sex with. We actually did it more than a few times. Last time was a couple of months ago when I visited him in Boston."

"Oh," I said, not sure what to say. I had, of course, known about Kristen's first time with her brother, although I had never asked (nor really wanted to know) about the gory details. Hearing Kristen describe her relationship with her brother, especially the part where it seemed to be ongoing, however, made me feel a bit uneasy for some reason. Why this was, though, I couldn't put a finger on it.

"Shit," Kristen said, looking at me.

"What?" I asked.

"I hadn't told you about all this," Kristen said, "mostly because you didn't ask."

"I told you, the money isn't that important."

"But you're jealous. There is really more that you need to know about me. Yeah, I'm rich. And I'll take care of Will and my family, if necessary, and still have enough money to live very comfortably just on the interest alone. Will is special--very special to me. Please don't be jealous. You don't need to be."

Jealousy? Was that what I was feeling? I was stunned.

"I'm not jealous," I protested.

Kristen said, "You haven't met Will. Maybe I'll arrange a trip for the two of us to see him in Boston. We have a nice apartment there. I promise you that you'll like him."

I didn't know how to answer this, especially the "we have an apartment" part. I didn't say anything.

Kristen tried to find the right words. "Will isn't you, Jim. He was, and still is, a very good friend to me. He is also my brother. I've talked to him quite a bit about you. I once thought of him as a lover, but we always knew that we wouldn't be able to live together as husband and wife, and we both understand that."

Kristen smiled at me. "Anyway, Will has this mystical way about him. I've told him about you and he really likes you, and has told me that he thinks that you're a 'keeper.'"

"He called me a 'keeper?'" I repeated, now smiling. "That's how Mom described you when I first brought you over for dinner."

Kristen giggled. "Wow. Talk about coincidences! Anyway, you remember the day you made me a junkie?"

I lowered my eyes. Yes, I remembered that. Kristen didn't talk about it that often, thank goodness. "Yeah," I said, dejected.

Kristen knew I still harbored a lot of guilt over that. "I called Will collect that day," she continued, "but I never got through to him. He was out, I guess. You don't know how strange that was to me, Jim. It's as if he always answers my calls on the first ring, as if he is expecting me to call that very second. This was one of the first times in my life that I turned to him and he wasn't there. I didn't really know who you were, or how you made me do the things I did. To tell you the truth, even now I don't know what to make of your damned tickets. Anyway, I was thinking about moving out to Boston to be with him and to get away from you, but the reality was that you had made me addicted to you. There was no way for me to leave. The cravings were horrible! I was stuck here with you. Luckily, things have worked out since, and I'm still here." Kristen gave me one of her killer smiles. "See! Happy ending!"

I looked at Kristen. She was smiling at me, having forgiven me a while ago. Now, of course, we were lovers.

Kristen picked up her cards, and then played a perfect sequence of Reverse, Skip, Draw-Two cards, then played a Draw-Four, called "Red" and played a red nine. Her hand was empty, and I looked at my hand... the two Draw Fours were one hundred points right there, and I had six more cards from the draw pile on top of that.

"Fuck!" I said, looking at the cards in my hand with disgust. "Some fuckin' happy ending! My hand looks like a basketball score!"

"Oh, you!" Kristen smiled.

I put my cards down. "So, the interest on your inheritance is sixteen hundred bucks a month?"

"Sixteen thousand dollars, actually, but it may be earning more interest than that, now. A financial manager actually runs the fund, and he has it invested in stocks, bonds, and a few other things. Occasionally I can request specific stocks and investments, sometimes because of suggestions my father makes, but mostly for sentimental value. For example, I have a thousand shares in Disney because I liked Mickey Mouse when I was younger. Or was it ten thousand? I forget." Kristen smiled. "Anyway, there's a CPA that does the income taxes and other things, and my mother and I cosign the papers once a year after the accountants tell me what they have done with my money. When the money is officially mine, I'll set things up so that I have a bit more control of what happens with my money."

The numbers were simply astronomical for me. "I'd rather just not have to worry about money."

"Well, it's not much to worry about. In three months, as I said, I'm entitled to it. The fund manager renegotiates his salary based on the performance of the fund over the past year. That, the annual briefing about my finances, and signing tax forms each year is about as much as we will have to worry about if we don't want to worry about it."

I had gotten used to Kristen's way of thinking that marriage between us was just a matter of formality. I loved her; she loved me. Now we wouldn't have to worry about money. What more could a guy ask for?

I had an answer to that question. I wanted to be the person that provided for Kristen if we got married. The fact that she had boatloads of money didn't seem to faze her, but it worried me. How could I provide for her if she was already a millionaire?

Kristen looked at the time and said, "Time for dress-up. Come on, Ken!"

The name "Ken" came from a little game of "Barbie and Ken" the two of us had started playing with each other where we would dress each other up, usually with Kristen wearing risqu lingerie. Actually, I called her "Beautiful Krissie" because of her actual name, as well as the fact that I was madly infatuated with Kristen's luxuriously soft and wonderful hair. I remember there was a doll named something like "Beautiful Chrissie" back in the sixties or early seventies with hair that got longer... it was a perfect match for my lovable Goddess.