It had all started out quite innocently enough and with the best of intentions.
My wife had died unexpectedly at the age of 45 from breast cancer. Shunning the well-meaning comfort ministrations of friends and family, I took what money I had saved—which was quite a bit—and began wandering around the globe. I had always loved travel, and I had always loved writing about it. Not only was I able to write about it, but to my astonishment, I also was able to make a living from my writing—enough to keep me traveling if I wished as a full-time occupation.
But once a year for a rest, I would take a month off. Since I did not have a home of my own anymore, I usually spent the month with my brother Stan, an investment banker who had a lavish home near Short Hills, New Jersey. That's where Jackie Kennedy had once lived.
Stan and his wife Catherine had only one child, Carrie, who as you might expect with a heritage like hers was very smart. She made good grades through all of her school years, and by the time she got into high school, she had decided that she wanted to be an archaeologist. That would involve a lot a lot of traveling, something she looked forward to.
By that time she also had changed her name from Carrie to "Keri", which she thought was more elegant. She got the idea of the name from the young actress Keri Russell.
But she did not look like Keri Russell. Carrie had always been very pretty as a young girl, but unlike Miss Russell, she had long blonde hair and blue eyes. She was about five foot-six and weighed about 105 pounds. She also had a radiant smile. She was a petite knockout in other words.
Since I was always looking for an excuse to travel or to go somewhere that I had been before, I came up with the idea that if Carrie—pardon me, Keri—got good marks all during her school year, I would take her—with her parent's permission of course—to some exotic and foreign locale for a week or so. Keri jumped at the idea of such travel, and her parents readily agreed to it.
At the end of her sophomore year, I took her to London for a week, since England had been the ancestry of our family. At the end of her junior year, I took her to my favorite city in the world, Paris. We stayed in a lovely old French hotel which once had been the home of Napolean's doctor.
To save a little money and give us a more time to talk about the experiences of each day, I always reserved one room with two single beds. I don't know whether the concierge though that this beautiful young girl was really my niece—or perhaps was my "companion." But it did not seem to matter. This was after all, Paris.
At the end of Keri's senior year, it was apparent that I had to do something really special. She had been awarded a full scholarship to the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, which specialized in her area of interest, archaeology, and I wanted to offer her something in the way of travel that would be historical and quite different.
She and a number of the other students in high school had been reading a series of books about young vampires who fell in love. I thought the whole idea was silly—but I wondered if she might like to see where the Dracula legend had started.
"How would you like to go to Transylvania to see Dracula's castle?" I asked her.
"Are you kidding me?"
"No. For your graduation present, I could take you on a river cruise in Europe, beginning in Germany. The trip, which embodies three major rivers, goes all the way from Frankfurt to Bucharest, which is in Romania. Bucharest is not far from the smaller city of Brasov in what used to be Transylvania. And Brasov is not far from the castle of the man who inspired the Dracula legend. His name was Vlad the Impaler, and he was a war hero when that country fought the Turks."
"There really is such a place then?"
"Yes."
"And a real Dracula?"
"There was."
"I would LOVE to go!"
"I'll ask your parents if it would be okay. The entire trip would take about ten days."
"Fantastic."
"You don't mind sticking your neck out in other words?"
She laughed. "No, I don't."
As I had expected, her parents readily agreed to the idea of the trip. So I made the reservations. I had never worked with a travel agent, since I preferred making the arrangements myself. You learn more that way, and the arrangements were more likely to be correct.
So the arrangements I made were: American Airlines from Kennedy Airport in New York to Frankfurt, Germany, where we would have pre-reserved accommodations at a nice hotel. Then, the next morning, we would board the luxurious cruise liner Prince Ludwig at the Frankfort harbor.
The itinerary, with stops along the way, was to be: Frankfurt along the Main River to Wurzburg, where we could take a side bus trip to the old walled 12th century town of Rothenburg. Then on to Nuremburg, the Christmas city. Later, we would be on the Danube River Vienna, the city of Beethoven. From there it would be on to Budapest, the capital of Hungary; then Belgrade, the heart of Serbia, and finally Bucharest, the capital of Romania and our last stop. From there we would take a local train to Brasov, where we would get on a bus tour to take us to Dracula's castle. Finally, we would fly back from Bucharest to New York.
The major part of the trip though would be by the cruise liner. And thus the sleeping accommodations and three meals a day would be on the boat. I ordered a cabin on the "C" deck, which meant that we would have a large picture window to view the passing scenery. I made the reservation in the name of myself and my "female companion", Keri Smith. Such arrangements in this day of course were not uncommon.
"Will that be twin beds or a double?" the reservation clerk asked.
" A double."
It may look at this point that I was getting erotic designs on my lovely blonde niece, and that in fact would be the truth. How could I resist? It had been apparent to me for several years that Keri found my travel tales to be fascinating, and invariably she greeted my arrivals at their house with a big hug and a kiss—and many questions about my travels. We both liked each other very much, and that was obvious. So since she was now 18, I decided I was going to see just how far I could go with this, even if I was old enough to be her father.
I knew that in high school, Keri had been dating the same boy, Sean, for two years. So I assumed that she probably was no longer a virgin. Also, I had heard and read that young ladies today actually enjoyed performing fellatio, while in the old days, we had to beg for it. And if there was one thing I enjoyed more than a nice fuck, it was a delicious blowjob. I always thought a blowjob was more intimate than a fuck since it involved a pretty girl's face. And if I could just get that from my lovely niece, I would be quite happy. As it turned out, I was to get quite a bit more.
We arrived in at the airport in Frankfurt around 6 a.m., hung over with jetlag naturally. By the time we got through Customs and got a taxi into the city and to our hotel, the Konigshof, it was around 8.m. As per my prior arrangement, we were able to check in right away.
"This is a really nice room," Keri said, looking around. But I am totally exhausted. Can I take a nap?"
"No. Any seasoned traveler will advise you that if you want to get over your jetlag, you have to get into the local time right away. Otherwise you'll wake up at 3 a.m. wanting dinner—and you'll never get over your jetlag."
"Just like we did in Paris and London, right?"
"That's right. So we'll go out for a walk through the old section of Frankfurt, which is called Sachenhausen, and have a good lunch there. Then we can come back, have a light dinner at the hotel, and you can go to bed early, around 9 p.m."
"What will you do?"
"Go out and pick up frauleins."
She looked at me.
"Just kidding of course."
"I hope so. I would like to think that I would be enough for you."
That was a curious thing to say.
Frankfurt is primarily known as a business city and the hub of Europe because of its central location. So the walk around the old section of the city was only of mild interest. But we did have a good German lunch of wiener schnitzel for Keri and bratwurst for me. And we shared a bottle of Moselle wine. I didn't know what the drinking age was in Germany, and I was not going to ask.
By the time we got back to the hotel in the taxi, Keri was nearly asleep.
"I want to take a shower before I go to bed," she said drowsily as we entered the room.
"Of course. Good idea."
After taking her shower, Keri emerged in a pair of dark blue satin pajamas with red piping. I could see from the interesting "points" on the front of the jacket that she was apparently not wearing a bra, and when she bent over to pull down the covers on her bed, I could see from the absence of a line that she was not wearing any panties either.
"Those are pretty pajamas," I said.
She turned. "They're new. I bought them for the trip. Usually I like to sleep in the nude, but I thought it might be a little inappropriate for this trip," she said with a smile.
"No comment."
"What do you mean?"
"I said no comment."
"I know what you meant. You would probably like that, wouldn't you?"
"No comment."
"You're supposed to be my uncle. That would be incest...sort of."
"I know, and I'm sorry. It's just that you're a very pretty girl, and I'm a normal man. And you're not the same girl that I took to London two years ago."
"I'm no longer a virgin—if that's what you mean."
"It's not what I meant, but it will do."
That was interesting—and it was interesting that she had told me. Was she toying with me or what? Perhaps I would find out. But not this night. She was fast asleep ten minutes after she got into bed. I spent another ten minutes sitting on the edge of my bed looking at her. What a delicious little treat she would be if I could figure out a way to have her. As I was to find out, that was not going to be difficult.
We had breakfast at the hotel the next morning, then took a taxi over to the harbor, where we boarded the Prince Ludwig.
"This is going to be so great!" Keri said as we boarded the ship. "I've never been on a cruise before."
"Wait until you see our cabin. I think you'll like it."
"Oh my God! This is gorgeous!" she exclaimed as we entered the cabin. "I thought it would be just some small thing." The cabin was about 15 feet square, and the dominant feature in it was a large picture window, about 3 by 4 feet that gave a wonderful view of the shoreline. But the dominant feature for me was the queen-size bed. The headboard was against one sidewall, and the TV facing it was against the other side. There also was a dresser with six drawers and a silver tray on top of the dresser. And on the silver tray was a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket and two champagne glasses.
"Is that for us?" Keri asked.
"What do you think?"
She smiled. "Great."
I went over to open the champagne. "A lower deck would have been cheaper, but you would not have had the window."
"This is great! I can't believe it."
I opened champagne, poured two glasses, and handed one to her.
"To the cruise," I said, raising my glass.
"To the cruise."
We both drank. "Also, I'm sorry that they were all out of suites with twin beds (a lie), so I'm afraid that we'll have to share this one."
She looked at the bed. "That's okay, I don't mind." She turned and gave me what I thought was a wicked smile.
"Accordingly to the itinerary booklet, we'll cast off in about two hours," I said.
"Great. Can I wander around by myself for awhile?"
"Sure. I'll unpack and go find where I can buy a English language paper."
"All right." She finished her drink and left.
Keri was back in an hour, and the boat cast off.
Later, we both dressed for dinner and headed up to the dining area. Keri was wearing a simple but beautiful white dress and had a blue ribbon in her hair. Very virginal, I thought.
I had the veal with wild mushrooms, and Keri had the shrimp scampi. And once more we shared a bottle of white wine.
"You're trying to get me drunk," she said with a smile.
"Not a bad idea. I hear you're more fun that way."
"You heard right."
It was 8 p.m. by the time we returned to the cabin. I had already ordered up another bottle of champagne, and it was chilling in a silver bucket.
"More champagne," Keri said.
"This is a special occasion."
