Before I, Kevin Hawken, tell my story, I have to tell you a little about some weird interests and personality traits that I have, and which developed early in my life, probably right at the start of my teens. Despite the fact that I did all conventional male/macho things like sports, games, fights, raunchy behavior, etc., I always had an appreciation of art. I liked all art, from classic to modern, from paintings and sculptures to performance art; especially if the subjects were female. When away from my male friends I even read about, and tried to identify, different types of beauty not just as expressed in art, but in life too, and sketched beautiful women in pencil all of the time. I would have loved to paint beautiful women on canvas but could never really afford high class materials that would allow me to create true works of art.
The different forms of female beauty that I identified (including famous women examples of each) were:
-Fierce; there is something aesthetically edgy about a fierce beauty. Oftentimes she has a "dark vibe," rich lips, perfectly shaped eyes and eyebrows. I think Beyoncé and Angelina Jolie are good examples.
-Innocent; there is something wholesome about an innocent beauty. She has an open face, large expressive colorful eyes, and natural color hair. She has a shy affect and is very feminine; an "ingénue" in literature. A young Audrey Hepburn is perhaps the most classic example; in modern times, maybe Amy Adams.
-Tough; there is an athletic edginess to a tough beauty. She is tall and muscular with well-defined facial features, with a huskier voice than normal and a sassy independent personality. Think Gina Carano, Ronda Rousey, or Venus Williams.
-Plastic; there is an inexplicable attractiveness to a plastic beauty, almost like a ceramic doll rather than a real human. She probably has a fake tan, fake nails, plastic surgery, and bleached blonde hair, and is super skinny. Can you say Paris Hilton?
-Girly; in a girly beauty there is an attractiveness between the dark vibe of a fierce beauty and the lightness of an ingénue. She cares about her appearance but there is nothing fake about her. Everybody's sweethearts Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock are classic examples.
This story, in part, deals with what led me to identify another category.
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I grew up in a municipality at the outskirts of a large metropolitan area. My community was one that had a significant disparity in the economic status of different regions. Fortunately, there was no one (at least that I knew of) who was below the poverty line, but about a third of the population had difficulties making ends meet, about 60% were middle class, and about 7% were very wealthy. I came from a middle class family; we had a good life, but there was nothing fancy or ostentatious about us.
Most of the rich kids either went to private school or were snotty. There was one major exception, my best friend. His name was Bradley Brighton Van Rensselaer, but he only answered to "Van;" everyone called him that except his stepmother, who without fail called him "Bradley." Van was an excellent athlete, smart, a good guy, and so humble that he seemed almost embarrassed by his father's wealth. Unless you went to his house (actually a mansion), or saw his father's Bentley, you would never know that Van came from money.
There was something else about Van; he was the best looking guy around and always respectful to women, and since I was always hanging out with him, we were both 6 feet 2 inches tall and 185 pounds, and I was decent looking myself, we never lacked for female companionship. Starting when we were 18 year old juniors in High School we had more than our share of pussy.
Van and I played competitive lacrosse in the spring and fall, and swam competitively in the winter. Van's mother had died in a tragic accident when he was in eighth grade, and his father George married Van's stepmother Allegra when Van was a sophomore. I was the only friend of Van's invited to the wedding, which is the first time that I saw Allegra. At the time she was 29; Van and I were 17, both having started school a year later than most kids, for different, unimportant, reasons.
When I was introduced to Allegra we both had a strange reaction. Her eyes got wide, she gulped, was silent for a good five or six seconds, and then like a switch was thrown she acted just like she did with everyone else.
When I shook her hand, while she was speechless and gulping, an electric charge went through my arm, directly to my brain, and then down my spinal cord. That resulted in a quick (and hopefully not noticeable) shiver.
Despite the electric charge, my first impression of Allegra was that she was a "rich bitch." My view of her may have been tainted by Van's since he didn't seem to like her. I think that it was because she was taking his mother's place, and that rubbed him the wrong way, especially since his dad married her only a little over two years after his mother died. After a while, however, Van warmed up to her when he realized she wasn't trying to replace his mother but had an actual interest in his success and well-being. By the middle of our junior years he liked her.
Van told me, and it was easy to see if you even just looked at her let alone talked to her, that she had been rich her entire life and had almost as much money as George did. Van had various theories as to why she married his 41 year old father (his father inherited most of his fortune although he was also a great businessman and wealthy in his own right) when she was 12 years younger than he was and didn't need the money, but I never put much stock in his theories.
Since I was over at Van's house often, and she was always a polite hostess and interested in Van's life - and since I was his best friend, mine - I not only saw a lot of Allegra but talked with her often. She didn't fit into any of the categories of beauty that I had identified when evaluating art. Allegra never had a hair out of place, her makeup (except when she was exercising when she wore no makeup) always looked professionally applied, and I never saw her in a piece of clothing (including her exercise duds) that wasn't new looking and didn't have a crease. Her posture and manners were likely what they taught in old-time finishing school. She was far from warm, but wasn't cold either. I never heard her say anything close to tasteless, let alone utter a swearword, she had the largest vocabulary of anyone that I had ever talked to; plus her diction was perfect. Allegra was universally prim and proper, polite to everyone, including me. Her body was slim, but not skinny, and her face alluring.
I had to make up a new classification for Allegra's beauty: "proper." However, there was more about her than her "Proper Beauty" that I had great difficulty identifying. There was something mysterious about her that always seemed to put me a little bit on edge, but at the same time drew me to her. It fucked with my mind, and caused me to often stutter when around her, probably because I never identified the reason for the "electric charge" the day that I met her.
I stuttered the most around Allegra when one day at Van's house she commented that she had seen some of my sketches of women displayed at our High School's amateur art fair, and asked me a number of questions about them and my appreciation of art. Some of the questions where if the women I sketched were real life models or from my imagination. Since I realized only after I'd displayed it that one of them looked a lot like Allegra, the discussion made me very uncomfortable. Fortunately, Van saved me from too long of a discussion by demanding that we throw a lacrosse ball around on the extensive grounds of his mansion.
Van's dad, George, really liked me because I was not only a good friend to Van, but because I kept his confidence about some things that I knew (and Van and Van's mother didn't) that he would rather not become public; and I'll not say what they were, ever. At times, in my presence, he told Allegra that I was the most discrete young person that he had ever met.
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Early one Saturday afternoon during the summer after graduation from High School when Van and I were both 19 and making plans to go off to different colleges, both on lacrosse scholarships (something I badly needed to pay my way through, something that Van just liked the status of), he called me in a panic. "Kevin, buddy, you've got to do me a solid," he urgently pled.
"What's up dude?"
"I just remembered that I promised Allegra that I'd move all of my athletic equipment out of the garage; my dad is out of town and she has some big charity thing tonight and the caterer needs the space to set up a mobile kitchen. If I don't move it she's either gonna be hopping mad or just throw my shit out or pile it up somewhere and do damage to it. I can't move it because Julie and me are about fifty miles away and have plans. You've gotta move it for me, bro," he excitedly uttered.
"No problem, dude; I'll go over there right away," I chuckled. Even though I just had a tank top and shorts on - having just got out of the shower after a weightlifting session - I saw no reason to change just to do some manual labor.
When I got to Van's house I rang the doorbell. I was surprised when Allegra answered instead of the maid. She was wearing a typical outfit for her, a crisp tight pleated skirt, nylons, three inch heels, and a puffy blouse, all of which looked like they came out of a Niemen Marcus catalog they were so chic and expensive.
"Hello Kevin," she politely said.
"Uh...hi Mrs. Van Rensselaer," I choked out. "Uh...Van is out and won't...uh...be back for a while (gulp) and he asked me to move his athletic equipment...uh...since it's in your way."
"Very well, Kevin; you're obviously a good friend to Bradley. It's in the garage. Follow me and I'll show you where to put it."
I followed Allegra, trying not to focus on her ass which was distorting her fairly tight skirt, and moved back and forth as she walked in her high heels. She showed me the equipment, where in the finished basement she wanted me to put it, and emphasized that it must be stored neatly. "It's not that I don't trust you, Kevin, but could you come and get me and have me look at it once you've moved everything?"
"Uh, sure, uh, Mrs. Van Rensselaer," I choked out.
For some reason I was nervous the first five minutes that I was moving Van's shit, probably from my interaction with Allegra; then I settled down. Van had tons of equipment including about twenty lacrosse sticks, a lacrosse goal, several tennis rackets, an ornate croquet set, a badminton net and set, and even some stuff that I didn't recognize. It took me a good half hour to move it all. When I was done I walked from the basement upstairs and called "Mrs. Van Rensselaer, I'm done."
Allegra came out of the kitchen, smiled at me, and then preceded me downstairs to the finished basement. As I stood leaning against a bank of shelves about six feet away from her she looked around. "You've done an excellent job Kevin." Then she sat on a low table next to the shelves and put her right foot up on a chair. "Before you go, Kevin, there are some things I would like to ask you about if that's OK."
"Uh...sure, Mrs. Van Rensselaer," I hesitantly replied.
