Chapter 1

There are at least a thousand erotic tales in the world about quarreling brothers who steal (or temporarily borrow) the girlfriends or even the spouses of their brothers. I don't find this especially erotic myself, but then again I'm just a bit biased on this subject.

They usually have a similar theme; one brother goes off to college or to war or to some place very out of sight and out of mind, and their girl gets restless and bored. Rather than waiting for her sworn love to return, the girl instead of waiting for 'Mr Right', settles for 'Mr Right Now'.

Sometimes the brother 'steals' the girl, or other times she should be assigned much more of the blame. Either way the absent brother gets an unwelcome surprise on his eventual return home.

Stuff happens. Maybe the next few family holidays might be a bit awkward, but folks usually move on and get over it. Life goes on, doesn't it?

I could never recall ever reading a story about a brother so absolutely warped and twisted enough to make the suffering of his younger sibling his entire life's work. With the seduction and debauchery of the other's loved ones not just an idle whim of fancy, but instead a 'duty' that must be performed. Most would-be story writers apparently never met my brother Dragos.

"What a minute!" Some of you are now saying or thinking to yourself. "What about your parents? Surely they would have put a stop to this!"

Logical assumption, but unfortunately not even remotely accurate. On the contrary, his every victory over me was held in the highest praise, and he was encouraged from my earliest days in the cradle to treat me as if I were but the lowest servant in our father's house.

Apparently it was traditional in the remote mountain village in Romania, somewhere near Bulgaria, where my mother and her older sister came from, to have a designated 'scapegoat', that all of the evils of the village could be dumped upon so that the rest might enjoy better luck and fortune. The more the scapegoat suffered, the better the prosperity for all.

From the moment of my birth, I fulfilled this function in our household.

My father was an Ivy League college graduate at the time that America entered the Second World War, and like most sons of US Congressmen, he didn't particularly want to get packed off to the Army or the Navy to learn to march, shoot a gun, or learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. It was considered very politically advantageous though, for him to 'do something vaguely patriotic' that would garner him a few votes for his own future political career, so Grandfather, being the Senior Congressman of our New England state, made a few phone calls and father was soon admitted into the OSS (the early precursor to today's CIA under the enthusiastic and controversial administration of "Wild Bill" Donovan).

Here at least was a 'proper war' being conducted by the sons and daughters of America's elite bankers, lawyers, politicians and other 'blue bloods'. He may have indeed learned how to march (a little bit), fire a wide variety of guns and use other things that would go boom, and he even jumped out of a great many perfectly undamaged airplanes by both day and night, but most evenings he was with his social equals, eating from antique china and drinking good claret from fine crystal goblets. It probably came as a great disappointment to him when he discovered that his little role for the war had at last been determined, and he found himself in early 1943 being parachuted into a remote mountainous region of southwest Romania.

Romania was nominally an ally of Nazi Germany, but that was largely due to the fact that most Romanians hated and feared the Russians even worse. There was a small Resistance movement deep in the heart of these nearly impenetrable mountains and it was my father's job until the end of the war to help coordinate their activities with allied planners in London. This region was remote, and if there were any critical or important war time objectives anywhere in the area, I never heard him mention any of them. From what I could tell, his wartime duties most often involved carousing with the local women and drinking the strong earthy local wine with his partisans late into each night.

By 1944, it was obvious which way the war was turning, and for most Romanians things had now become a battle for survival and self-preservation against the approaching Russian Army. Romanian Regional Army Unit commanders that six months ago had been casually trying to keep my father's partisans too busy (or too drunk) to fight, now welcomed his aid and assistance (and all of the supplies that London could airdrop). By the end of the war, the OSS had turned much of its own focus towards secretly stopping Russia, and another new war of Resistance against an occupying 'Allied' army had begun.

Somewhere about this time, my father met my mother, Camila ("Flower") and married her at the local church in a fit of excitement as Red Army scouts were less than an hour from the village, and they skedaddled together across the border into Bulgaria, where they eventually were taken back to safety on a British submarine. With them was my mother's elder maiden sister Britita ("exalted one"), whom even at a young age was apparently the leader of the local women's councils.

In any event, the 'War' for my father was now over. He got a nice medal and photo of him shaking 'Wild Bill's' hand in Washington, and he went back home to start his own political career in grandfather's footsteps.

Grandfather was a strange, hard man in his own way. He had inherited a good bit of money and a lot of forest land in the wilds of northern Maine and drove himself to become the 'Pulp Paper King' of the Depression Era. He had married my grandmother not out of love (I don't think they even liked each other much), but because his new father-in-law was a big player in the magazine publishing business and Granddad saw more profits in becoming his own best customer and running the printing presses for his father-in-law's publications. In time, he even somehow found a way to squeeze out this inter-family competition, and in a subtle takeover, he assumed control over the empire that his father-in- law had built.

He had no friends, just 'temporary allies'. His political and business enemies respected him, but they feared him - and to grandfather this was much better. My father's character was carved much the same way.

As the war years passed and the returning war heroes entered politics, my father had a smooth path right into Grandfather's comfortable seat in Congress. Grandfather had suffered a series of small strokes during the war years (he smoked like a chimney all of his life, and my father did as well) and was ready to retire, but didn't live long enough to enjoy it much, and he died a few years before I was born. Most tellingly, my father claimed 'important pressing work in Washington' and didn't attend his own father's funeral.

Children didn't come easily for my mother Camila. I'm not certain, but I believe she had miscarried at least three previous children before my older brother "Dragos" was born in the mid-1950's. William, was his real first given name, but I don't think I ever once heard it used in our house because it was always his middle Romanian name, (meaning 'Precious') that was invariably used.

My own arrival about four years later came as a complete and utter surprise to the family. Supposedly I was given my name of Claudiu ("disabled"), by Britita, (my Aunt or "Tanti") as she thought at first I was disfigured or deformed. I wasn't, but the name still stayed. I thought of myself always as Claude, but it was always the more traditional version that I always heard at home.

With 'Tanti' in the house, I could safely say it was like having two mothers, except that my own mother played little, if any, role in my actual upbringing. Tanti ruled the nursery, and it was through her direction that Dragos was encouraged to take ever increasing advantage over me, his younger and helpless little brother. My tears were rewarded by sweets and special treats for him, and my role as the family scapegoat had begun.

From early childhood, it was indoctrinated into me that my older brother Dragos was 'special' and most "admirabil," "excelen" and "tren special". He could do absolutely no wrong in anyone's eyes. I, on the other hand, was 'useless' and I heard Tanti invariably call me "infructuos, pustiu or abatut." If I was especially bad and stood up for myself against my older brother, I was a "dizgratie," a disgrace!

The crowning ceremony and topmost frosting of my large cake of misery, was the celebration held for Dragos for his 15th birthday, shortly before he started High School. Naturally, I had never had a 'birthday party', but I had learned that if I kept to the background and kept my mouth shut and stayed properly humble, I could sometimes have a small piece of Dragos's birthday cake. But this function seemed even bigger, and of more importance than any that had occurred before this. Our large house was filled with special guests, mostly from the 'old country', and at length the real reason for this immense party became clear. Tante presented my brother with a large ruby ring. A very 'special' ring, we were all told. Not only now was Dragos to be considered 'a man', but he was now also to be considered as the 'clan head' or ruler of our family, and even of our tribe back in Romania.

This was inconceivable to me, that even mother and father were to be considered as beneath Dragos now, and they should now also obey him as I did. Father, as always, spent most of his time alone in Washington and if he ever 'submitted' to this new household authority, I never saw any signs of it in those days. He was uncommonly proud of his boy, however. Mother, who always seemed quite weak willed and invariably followed the guidance of her sister, quite suitably submitted to his rule of the household. Any pretext of 'parental discipline', however minor, was soon long gone.

I had thought my Junior High School years would be a slight improvement, as I hoped my brother would find interests to occupy him in High School, but if anything things got worse. If I somehow made a friend at school, it would take just a few minutes of my brother's time to turn him instead into my most implacable foe. I never could understand how he did it, either by persuasion or by gifts of money, but soon I was also most definitely the pariah of my school.

My teachers soon began to hate me, considering me a 'troublemaker', and the other boys and girls learned that I could be bullied with complete immunity. Even new students learned that I could be either safely beaten upon, or utterly ignored, giving me a wide berth. With little reason to play, my recess hours became increasing occupied with finding a quiet hidden corner where I could avoid trouble and read a book alone for a few moments of blessed peace and quiet.

Books became my constant companion. I could read them openly while at school, but I learned to keep them well-hidden at home, as anything that appeared to give me pleasure or happiness was relentlessly suppressed. I learned to live a life of duplicity, where I would pretend that my favorite foods were indeed my least favorite, and vice versa, and my 'pleasure reading' instead became another odious 'homework assignment' that I had to read for a heartless teacher and give an oral report upon the next day.

When Dragos went off to our father's elite Ivy League college just as I started High School, my life did indeed begin to slightly improve. Out of sight = very much out of mind, at least for awhile.

My new classmates and teachers seemed to offer me at least guarded neutrality, rather than the outright hostility I was used to, and my studies thrived. I became a straight A student for the first time in my life, but this won me no favors at home, and I resumed my act of 'indifference' to school and I complained of over- work and attempted to look harried and miserable. I was allowed even to join the school newspaper, as this was deemed useful to our family's large publishing business. I found that I wrote well, and soon started to receive local awards and some minor regional recognition from peer organizations such as "Quill and Scroll." Naturally, I withheld any mention of these minor successes that would displease my stern family at home.

I also began to discover girls, and found that being far from 'icky', they could be pleasantly soft and made my stomach go all a flutter if one happened to kiss me. I lost my virginity at sixteen to a girl a year older, in her bed at home. I thought I was in love, but it was probably really just teen hormones (and lots of them). It's also quite impossible to disguise a teenager in love in any household, let alone mine where it was the family industry to keep me ground underfoot. With a week or two of determined investigations, my girlfriend's name was discovered, and Dragos was requested to come home for a weekend and 'attend to the matter'.

That he certainly did; the girl was invited to our house and within five minutes she was upstairs and naked in Dragos's bed 'being given a proper education'. Needless to say, that when I saw my former love at school the next Monday, she wanted nothing at all to do with me and made it her mission for the remainder of the school year to 'warn off' other girls about me. God only knows what she told them, but not a single young lady for the rest of the year would even look at me!

My 'spare time' was also now being managed more carefully, to keep me out of trouble and more suitably oppressed. I spent my afternoons after school and weekends now working in one of my father's press rooms 'learning the trade from the bottom', so I could be of assistance to my brother later. If there was a nasty or unpleasant job to do, I was just the young man for it.

Worse still, I spent my next two summers working at a logging camp in the northern wilds of Maine, learning the other end of our business. Very far away from any possible feminine distractions.

Twice, I persevered and started relationships with young ladies at school, both times with the same end result. My brother would effortlessly seduce them before my very eyes and make them his own lovers, ingraining upon them in the process that I was lower than the dirt beneath their feet, and much to be avoided.

I was at an utter rock bottom emotional low point by the end of my senior year when I got sudden miraculous news that seemed to offer me an opportunity for escape. A small College far away on the west coast with an excellent Journalism program, offered to provide me with a full scholarship, including a dorm room with meals. This was a gift from heaven and I was going to accept it! My family had absolutely zero plans for any sort of a college education for me. On the contrary, it would be "absurditate and stupiditate" for me to go, Tante said, as it was 'unnecessary' for my future career on the lower rungs of the family business, especially as my old brother was intended for its highest rungs.

Seeing the writing very clearly on the wall, I told no one at home of my luck gaining the scholarship, and I rented a private PO Box to handle all of the correspondence for accepting it.

I saved every penny that I earned from the sweat of my brow in the lumber camp that summer, and on the day of my eighteenth birthday I cashed my final paycheck, closed my bank account and PO Box, and took a bus and then a train to the college. Nearly my first action was to go to the campus student Legal Aid office and have a young pre-law student type out for me a "Letter of Emancipation" stating that as I was over the age of eighteen, and a legal adult, I would now be making my own life decisions and would resent in the strongest possible way any further interference in my life whatsoever, thank you very much ... and may you all go to Hell, via the express lane. That summed it up, more or less.

Free to be myself, I threw myself into college life and enjoyed every moment of it! I did not go home for Thanksgiving, or for Christmas, or indeed for any holiday, vacation or any other reason, for the next three straight years. Until the summer of my junior year, when my lover and fiancé Wendy, asked for at least the eight hundredth time to be allowed meet my parents.

We had met while taking a class together in the spring of our freshman year, and within weeks we were dating. By the end of the semester, we were more or less living together, alternating nights between our two dorm rooms. She was in the journalism program too, as newspapers had been their family business for over three generations. We soon started to make plans for life together after graduation to work on her family's paper after graduation.

Over time I had told her about my family and their 'stupid Romanian mountain customs' that had ruined much of my life. She seemed sympathetic, but I don't quite think she really understood everything that I had dealt with.