This is a long romantic tale of jealousy, selfishness and cruel love, told in eight parts.
Part 1
I looked out the window at my car parked in the driveway, and noticed Ellie, my girlfriend's married sister, washing the inside of its windows. Tess, my girlfriend, was in another room playing the piano and I was bored ā at loose ends ā since no one else was in their parents' house, to which I'd been invited as a weekend guest. I gave Ellie a quizzical look through the window, she gave me a broad, dimpled smile, and continued with her work.
Curious, I walked outside and stood behind her, by the open car door, as she knelt on the driver's seat. "You don't have to clean my car," I said, somewhat embarrassed.
"I know, Rick," she said, "but you know how I love it. I figured that if I did you a favor you might let me drive it. I'm gonna do the upholstery next!"
The new, chocolate brown Porsche 911T was definitely a fine machine, but no finer than the beautiful, 26-year-old Filipina who was cleaning it. Probably by coincidence, this morning she was wearing an outfit that matched the car's color, a pair of skin-tight brown jeans and a ribbed turtleneck sweater that hugged her full-breasted upper body like a second skin. As I stared at the succulent round globes of her ass moving back and forth while she scrubbed, a hormonal charge zapped my groin and I muttered, "What a thing of beauty!"
"Yeah! This has always been my favorite car," she said, then looked back at me over her shoulder and saw where my eyes were resting. A brief smile came to her lips and her buttocks twitched, then she turned away and started spraying and wiping down the upholstery. "Well, are you gonna let me drive it? Tess'll be practicing all day for her concert in a few weeks, so you can come along and coach me!"
I'd been dating Ellie's younger sister, Tess, for almost a year, if "dating" means maintaining two separate apartments and otherwise being nearly inseparable. It was 1974. I was an early-thirties, white, Vietnam vet who'd gotten a doctorate and was working at an educational R&D lab that prepared inner-city kids for employment. The job now bored me, having evolved into a bureaucratic sinecure.
Unlike her curvy, 5'4" Filipina sister who'd inherited many Spanish genes, my girlfriend Tess was more "Asian looking," ā a rather angular though willowy woman at 5'7" with true almond eyes ā a grad student in music ten years my junior, and an already accomplished concert pianist. I'd met her when she was working part-time at the lab as a secretary to an African-American woman with whom I'd had a brief affair. That woman had subsequently resigned after a jealous blowup at the office involving yet another woman.
"Sure! A run down to Big Sur might be fun," I said, jumping at the chance to get out of the house. It'd become habit for Tess and me to drive from San Francisco to the sisters' parents in Carmel on weekends. Today her folks were gone, which allowed their youngest daughter a full day of uninterrupted piano practice. On this particular morning she was working on a piece by Josef Haydn. And, on this weekend Ellie's husband, Don, had stayed behind in the city, leaving we two significant others to fend for ourselves.
Before hooking up with Tess my relationships had been brief, fiery, and many. As a grad student I'd been married for a short while and had no intention of settling down again soon, regardless of how appealing a prospective mate might be. But Tess had captured my attention and I'd become at least monogamous, leaving behind a very active sex life. Aside from her exotic, Asian looks, she was mature beyond her years. And, the entrancing hours that I listened to her classical piano music soothed what in retrospect was my very troubled soul. Plus, we were phenomenal together in bed, which was of primary importance to me.
I wasn't yet aware of it, but my repressed memories of military combat ā and a personality that today might be called "bipolar" ā made me less than an emotionally stable boyfriend. Aside from these shortcomings, though I didn't yet know it, both Tess and Ellie had plans for meā¦quite apart from one another; on reflection, plans that I wish they hadn't had.
"How do you like the family?" Ellie asked, as we drove down Highway 1, the scenic road overlooking the Pacific, north of Big Sur. She'd switched on the local classical music station and we almost had to shout over the strains of a fiery piano
Etude
by Franz Liszt.
"Fine," I responded. "Your folks are very nice." I hadn't really gotten to know the girls' older half-brothers and sisters and their kids, who'd drifted in and out on previous weekends.
"We're a big family," she said. "You'll get to know the restā¦but, there's plenty of time for that." The way her small, beautiful tan hands worked the steering wheel showed she was an accomplished driver.
Always wary of the commitment involved in getting to know a woman's relatives, I said, "I don't really know how to handle big families." I was comfortable with the relationship I had with Tess, as sexually charged as it was, and wanted to avoid complicating it with the inevitable pressures caused by parents and siblings.
"Tess'll bring you in slowly," Ellie murmured, down-shifting expertly to speed past a slow truck. "She'll do it a little at a time," she added, seemingly aware of my hesitance to discuss the matter.
"She hasn't met my Mom, even though she lives just three miles away," I said, hoping to use that fact as a standard. "Of courseā¦
my
family's quite different." My Dad had died and I hardly knew my mother any more. Closeness had not been one of the values in the Pedersen household.
"I know," she said. "I had a white boyfriend before I married Don. There was always an undercurrent ofā¦distance. The fucking was great, though."
I was struck by Ellie's candor, and apparently it showed. She'd never mentioned sex in any previous conversation, regardless of context. My eyes lingered for a moment on her stunning 34C-24-34 body while she drove, as I ruminated on its sultry feminine secrets.
She glanced at me quickly and snickered, "Does that bother you, Rick?"
"Uuhā¦no. Not much
bothers
me any more," I said dishonestly, wondering where our talk was going.
"Well, it worries Tess, since sex seems to be the focus of your relationship," she said. "Sisters gossip, you know."
Great! I thought to myself. I'll bet you two have even discussed the sounds I make when I'm rutting!
"She's happy that you're so supportive of her musicā¦but she's concerned that you both seem slaves to your libidos. She also wants to live with you. She's tired of keeping two places and staying over with you just to fuck and play the grand piano."
I couldn't think of a better reason to be close friends with a woman ā especially the same woman ā yet I wasn't about to admit that directly to my particular woman's sister. Two nests are better than one, I thought. Separate addresses keep peopleā¦sane. In Tess's case, of course, there was the added appeal of her musical talent, which I respected tremendously. Yet, after nearly a year with her it seemed odd ā though I refused to speculate on the reasons ā that her sister seemed to be speaking in her stead.
Ellie pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and said, "Let's get a take out sandwich and walk down to the beach. But wait just a minute," she whispered, grasping my forearm and holding on tightly. "I want to hear the end of this," as she listened to the radio.
I watched her lean back in the seat and close her thickly lashed eyes as the nippled ridge of her breasts rose and fell excitedly to the conclusion to the
Rondo
from Chopin's First Piano Concerto. The slight smile on her moist, succulent, half-open lips made my temples throb for a moment. So did her grip on my forearm.
"That's positively orgasmic," she muttered, opening the car door and stepping out when the piece had stopped.
"I didn't know you were a fan of classical," I said. Apparently, she