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From: anais ninja <anais_ninja@hotmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Exile - EPILOGUE - Rescue Me (MFf tg teen)
Date: Sat,  8 Feb 2003 23:10:07 -0500
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Exile
 
(c) 2003  Anais Ninja  anais_ninja@hotmail.com 
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/anais_ninja/index.html 

 
Note:  This is my story.  The names and details have been changed to
protect the privacy of those involved.  Some of this account has
been reconstructed from memory, but most of it has been based on a
journal I kept during these years. 
 
This is a sequel to _Wanderings_, which can be found on my asstr-mirror.org
site: 
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/anais_ninja/wander/index.html 

 
EPILOGUE - Rescue Me (MFf tg teen)


January 1982


Let's talk about happy endings.

You can't live without hope.  Sometimes it's the little things, like
"I hope Dee didn't use the last of the conditioner" or "I hope this
guy who's pulling up to the curb doesn't smell too bad".  Sometimes
it's the big things: "I hope Cami is okay.  She should have been
back an hour ago" or "I hope that my knight in shining armor comes
for me". 

This last one, the "knight in shining armor", was sometimes the only
reason I'd get out of bed in the morning.  The hope that somewhere
out there was another Mr. Sheffield, someone who could take me away
from my life, someone who would love me and protect me, someone I
could spend the rest of my days with, pleasing him, loving him.  I
wasn't even particular about who or where; it could have been a
woman like Julia or Trish, or even a cash-strapped cabbie like
Larry.  Love doesn't know from dollars or sense.  Love doesn't
discriminate between cock or cunt. 

Don't get me wrong; I loved Cami and Delia, and I liked living with 
them, even though the basement apartment was a bit cramped for three
people.  But I'd always have a sense of foreboding whenever I hit
the streets.  The boys on the next block over were all talking about
something they called "gay cancer", some mysterious disease that was
going around.  Even the doctors we saw at the free clinic were
puzzled about it.  It was deadly and incurable, and if the
opportunistic pneumonia didn't get you, the fast-spreading sarcomas
surely would.  The clinic started giving out free condoms, telling
us to use them even for oral sex.  I met a lot of resistance from
the men who picked me up, thinking that only gay people caught it,
that they were somehow immune. 

I began to obsess about my knight in shining armor, retreating into
my adolescent fantasy even when I was out on the street, when I
should have been more aware of my surroundings, my situation, the
danger I placed myself in every day.  Sometimes I'd even imagine I
could see him, charging up the avenue on a white steed, street lamps
reflecting off of his polished armor as he dodged taxis and buses
and men cruising for a piece.  He'd lean over as he approached,
scooping me up from the sidewalk and on to his saddle, and we'd
gallop off into the sky, making the clouds our highway.  I'd dream
about him, too, always waking up just as I reached for his visor,
lifting it so I could see his face.  Or hers.

It was the week after Thanksgiving and I was on the street one
evening.  The long weekend had been dead slow, the streets virtually
deserted, our clientele more concerned about family and Christmas
shopping than a quick suck in a car or in an alley.  I'd just given
one guy the brush- off.  He wanted to fuck me, but he didn't want to
pay for the room.  Cami and I and some of the other girls on the
street had an arrangement with the owner of a rooming house on
Chandler Street, above one of the neighborhood's gay bars.  He'd
rent one of his rooms for $20 per hour, with a $50 deposit for the
key, refundable upon return.  It was safer and more comfortable than
trying to do it on the cold vinyl seat of someone's car, parked in
an alley where no one could hear you scream. 

I was disappointed.  It would have been nice to feel some heat for a
little while, both from the radiator in the rented room and from a
warm body on top of me, inside me.  The money would have been nice,
too.  On the other hand, I was proud of myself for not giving in to
the guy; doing things on my own terms had kept me alive and healthy
so far.  I wasn't about to change now, not for the $100 he'd offered
me to do it in his back seat.

Another car approached a few minutes later, a nice car, a big car,
the orange tint of the city's street lights glinting off of metallic
silver fenders.  As it came closer and slowed down, I saw it was a
Mercedes, just like Julia's, only newer.  The car stopped and a dark
tinted window lowered with an electric whine.  There were two people
in the front seat, a man and a woman.  I couldn't make out his face
because it was dark, but there was something familiar about the
blonde lady in the fur coat.

"Anne?" she called out.  "Annie?"  I stepped off the curb to get a 
closer look.  Then it clicked: her hair was different, but I
recognized her face.

"Helen?  Helen?!?"  I rushed to the car's door and she threw her
arms around me through the open window.  As I hugged her, I realized
that it was Bradley at the wheel.  He leaned over and squeezed my
arm, holding on to me as if something was about to snatch me away.

"We thought we'd never see you again," Helen said, kissing my cheek.

"Helen...," was all I could say, more of a sob than a name.  She and
her husband had been Julia's closest friends, and hugging her felt
almost like I was hugging Julia herself.

"Annie, what are you doing out here?" Bradley asked.  I couldn't
answer, but it must have been obvious: I was wearing a red miniskirt
and fishnets, and a fuzzy white cashmere sweater under a short red
jacket with fake fur trim around the cuffs, hem, and hood.  Cami
jokingly called this outfit my "Santa Whore costume".

"Annie, get in the car," Helen said, releasing her hold on me so she
could open the door.  She got out and had me scoot over the seat
next to Bradley, and then she got in, holding me again as I sat
between them.  I leaned my head against her shoulder, burying my
face in her fur coat while she caressed me and kissed my cheek. 
Bradley put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.  A couple
of minutes later we were on the turnpike heading west to their house
in the suburbs. 

The house was just as I remembered it, tall white columns flanking
the front entrance, double doors with gleaming brass knobs and
knocker.  Helen held me as we left the car in the circular driveway,
holding me up because my knees felt weak and rubbery.  It hardly
felt real.  It was like a dream.

If it had been a dream, then Julia would be waiting for me, sitting
on the couch, dressed in her silk nightgown, a glass of wine in her
hand and a book of poetry in her lap.  But it wasn't a dream.  Julia
wasn't there, waiting to give me a hug and a kiss.

The leather couch felt real, though, as did the snifter of brandy
that Bradley put in my hands.  I inhaled the woody scent and sipped
it, a welcome feeling of warmth spreading through my body.  Helen
put away her coat and sat next to me on the couch while Bradley
mixed a drink for her.

"After Julia passed away, we looked all over for you," Helen said as
Bradley handed her a Manhattan in a highball glass.  "Child Services
up in Maine gave us no end of trouble when we were trying to track
you down."

"By the time we found where you were, you'd run away," Bradley said.

"Julia..." I said.  Until now, my grief had been private, no one to 
share it with.  But now, sitting on the couch with Helen holding me
in her arms, I began to let it all out, pressing my head against her
breasts and sobbing.  I could feel her chest heaving, too, as she
cried with me, her tears dripping on to my face and mingling with my
own. 

"Poor baby," Helen whispered.  "Let it out, Annie.  Let it all out."

It could have been ten minutes.  It could have been an hour.  I lost
track of time, but by the end, when no more tears would come, I felt
as light as a feather.  Bradley handed me another glass of brandy
and Helen dried my puffy eyes, black streaks of my mascara staining
the tissue. 

"What were you doing in town?" I asked.  "Were you still looking for
me?"  Bradley cleared his throat, and Helen lifted my chin, looking
me in the eye.

"Not exactly," she said.  "Brad?"

"We, um, like to have company sometimes," he said, swirling his
drink, making the ice clink against the glass.

"Sometimes it's a boy, sometimes it's a girl like you," Helen said. 
What she didn't have to say was that they shared their bed with
whoever they picked up, paying them and driving them back to the
South End the next morning.  It was pure chance that they happened
to be looking for a girl that night; they could have easily passed
on to the next block, where the boys where.  Pure chance, a flip of
the coin.  And had I gone with the guy who was too cheap to rent a
room, I'd never have seen them, either.  I wondered how many nights
I'd been out there, just missing them by a minute or an hour or a
day. 

"Helen," I whispered, pressing my lips against hers.  I sometimes 
dreamed that I was back in the old house in Maine, and the house was
on fire.  A fireman would ascend a long ladder and rescue me,
carrying me out of the house on his shoulder and laying me on a
stretcher.  Invariably, the dream would end with me wrapping my arms
around his neck and kissing him passionately, to show my gratitude
for being rescued, for saving my life.  I could smell the smoke in
his clothes, taste the sweat on his skin, and then I'd wake up. 
When I kissed Helen, I felt the same way.

"Annie, you don't have to..." she started to say, but I cut her off,
kissing her again.  This time her lips yielded, parted, and our
tongues melted together.  I felt Bradley sitting down next to me,
his hand on my thigh, caressing me through the mesh of my fishnet
stockings.  I sat between them, still kissing Helen as he brushed
the hair from my face and began to nibble my ear and kiss my neck. 
A few minutes later, they helped me up from the couch and into their
bedroom. 

I'd forgotten how big Bradley was down there, as big as Mr.
Sheffield.  As Helen kissed and caressed my back, I greedily licked
and sucked his cock, trying to resist the compulsion to give him a
quick front-seat-of- the-car blowjob, forcing myself to slow down,
to make it last.  He took me from behind as his wife played with my
breasts and fingered my button, and afterwards, she licked his cum
from my pussy, making me come over and over again on their huge bed.
 I returned the favor, licking her juicy slit, getting her ready for
her husband's thick tool, suckling her nipples while he pounded her
snatch. 

We sat in the kitchen afterwards, Bradley mixing another round of
drinks while Helen made me a can of soup, having given her maid the
night off, as she usually did when they went looking for someone to
share their bed.  I called Cami on the phone, just to let her know I
was okay.  Helen had asked me to spend the night in their bed with
them, and I jumped at the chance.  I felt safe with them, like the
whole year had been a nightmare and I'd just woken up.

We talked for hours, and I told them everything, holding nothing
back, starting with the foster home and Mr. Hubbard, running away,
sleeping in bathrooms, meeting Michael, getting beaten up and kicked
out by his girlfriend, the cathedral and the shelter, Father Ken and
the other priests, Manny and Billy and Chris and Megan, Mr. O'Hare,
Trish, the men who were looking for me, the abandoned brownstone,
Mr. Antonelli, Larry, Cecil, Mr. Sheffield, Cami and Delia, my life
on the street.  It all came out in a torrent of words, punctuated
only by sobs when I recalled a particularly painful memory.  Bradley
held my hand and Helen dried my tears as they listened to me recount
the events of the past year. 

"Such a hard life," Helen whispered, kissing the tears from my
cheek. 

"I've got something to tell you," Bradley said, rubbing my
shoulders.  "Might make you feel a bit better."

Julia had remembered me in her will, leaving a trust in my name.  It
wasn't a fortune, but it was more than enough to send me to the
college of my choice, as well as provide for my living expenses from
now until after graduation.  That's why Bradley and Helen were
searching for me in Maine.  He was co-executor of Julia's estate and
my trustee.  Helen held me while I cried again, tears of joy this
time.  It was Julia's way of showing her love for me even in death. 
She really was in Heaven looking out for me; she really was my
guardian angel.  I whispered a silent prayer for her, Hail, Julia,
full of grace... 

I spent the night in bed with Bradley and Helen, too exhausted from
my emotional catharsis to do anything but curl up between them and
fall asleep, feeling secure between them, truly safe for the first
time in a long, hard year.  The next morning we had breakfast.  It
had snowed overnight and the trees looked beautiful, limbs and
branches draped in heavy white clumps of snow.

"Annie, we have something to ask you," Helen said, putting down her 
coffee cup and reaching out for my hand.

"We'd like you to stay with us," Bradley said.

"Another night?" I asked.

"No," Helen replied.  "Permanently.  As a member of our family."

I didn't know what to say.  Part of me wanted to be back with Cami
and Delia, in the tiny apartment we shared, my artificial family.  I
loved them and I didn't want to feel like I'd be deserting them. 
Who would watch out for Cami?  Who would memorize the license plates
of the cars she got into?

But there was also a calm voice in the back of my mind, telling me
that this is what Julia would have wanted.  I could be a normal
fourteen- year-old girl again, worrying about homework and tests,
obsessing over boys and clothes, and not putting my life and health
in jeopardy every time a car pulled up to the curb.  No more sweaty,
smelly crotches, no more shivering in the cold.

I said yes.

While Bradley went into work that day, Helen drove me back to
Delia's place to pick up my things.  Cami and I held each other and
cried, and even Dee got teary, holding the two of us as we wept
together. 

"I'm so sorry, Cami," I sobbed.  "I don't want to leave you."

"I know baby," she said, her voice cracking.  "But you gotta take
this.  It's a once-in-a-lifetime thing."

"I'll miss you," I said.  "I promise to visit.  I promise."

"I know you will," she said.  "Sisters forever?"

"Sisters forever," I repeated.  I hugged Dee again, and then Helen 
helped me with my stuff, loading it all into the car.  Before we
headed back to her home, I had her drive me around the neighborhood,
showing her the shelter, Mr. Antonelli's rooming house (which was
boarded up), the abandoned building where I'd hidden for a few days,
Cecil's loft.  And then we were back on the turnpike, leaving the
city behind, heading back to the snow-covered trees and the
blanketed lawns of the suburbs. 


                                  * * *


Bradley and Helen took wonderful care of me.  Carrie, their
daughter, was living with her boyfriend in Manhattan while she
attended Columbia, so I stayed in her room whenever I wasn't sharing
their bed.  Helen took me to her doctor, and I was examined and
tested for various sexually transmitted diseases.  None were found,
fortunately.  The doctor knew about my sexual history and told me I
had lucked out.  I knew differently; it had to be my guardian angel,
Julia, watching over me. 

Bradley managed to get legal guardianship over me.  It wasn't easy,
but he was an experienced lawyer, and the fact that he was already
my trustee certainly helped.  I had to speak to a family court
judge, and tell him that this was something I wanted to do.  I was
nervous sitting in his paneled chambers, but I managed to convince
him.  There was a thirty-day waiting period until the arrangement
became permanent, with those small public notices being placed in
the classified section of the newspaper, as well as a perfunctory
search for my biological father, my only living blood relative. 
Until these formalities were taken care of, I was in Bradley and
Helen's temporary custody. 

Helen hired a tutor, to get me up to speed before I started school
again in January.  I showed the tutor my spiral notebook, the one I
used to write down answers to the problems in the used textbooks I'd
bought while I lived at the rooming house.  Somehow, I'd gotten more
answers right than wrong, even the algebra, which sometimes twisted
my head into knots.  I'd been a bit lax while I was staying at
Delia's place, spending most of my time on the street or doing
housework and laundry, but between the textbooks and the tutor I
managed to pass an entrance exam for a private school, the Country
Day School, and get accepted for the next semester.  It was an
expensive place, but Helen insisted on sending me there, saying that
she and Bradley could easily afford the tuition.

As Christmas approached, Bradley bought a tree for the living room,
even though he and Helen were Jewish.  It was just for me, to make
me feel at home, part of the family.  Brightly wrapped presents
began to appear under the tree, and Helen was more than happy to
take me shopping so that I'd have presents of my own to give.  I
celebrated Hanukkah with them, helping Helen light the candles every
night, listening to her tell me about a miracle that happened ages
ago.  

I began to believe in miracles again.  The fact that Bradley and
Helen had somehow found me was proof enough.

Helen loved to take me shopping, happy to have a "daughter" she
could dote upon again, buying me clothes and shoes and jewelry,
things that were more "age-appropriate", as Father Ken would say. 
Though my beloved vintage dresses had a place of pride in the closet
in Carrie's room, I began to pack away the things I'd worn when I
was working, the short skirts, the tight sweaters, the tall boots
and high heeled shoes.  Though short, flouncy skirts were coming
into style back then, my new wardrobe took on a somewhat preppy
flavor, demure plaid skirts and pastel twin sets.

I looked forward to going to school again.  Sometimes I'd feel
restless in the house, and I'd spend an hour or so burning off
energy on the exercise bike in the basement.  There were weights
down there, too; Brad, their son, the blond Adonis I'd fallen for
the year before liked to use them.  I didn't lift them, but they
were a reminder that I'd see him soon, when he came home from the
Deerfield Academy for winter break. 

I was intellectually restless, too.  Bradley and Helen had seemingly
thousands of books, and even had a room just for reading, with 
comfortable chairs and a comfortable couch.  I'd spend hours in
there, picking random titles from the shelves, sitting down to read
with a warm quilt in my lap.  Helen would bring me tea with milk and
honey and join me, her reading glasses balanced on her nose, the
room silent except for the sound of pages turning and the singing of
the winter wind outside. 

There was one book that I found, not on the shelves but among the
things that Carrie had left behind when she moved in with her
boyfriend in New York, a book that struck a deep chord within me. 
It was _The Diary of a Young Girl_ by Anne Frank.  I opened it to a
random page and started reading, and then I started at the
beginning, reading practically the entire book in one sitting.  I
was reduced to tears at times, sometimes sobbing hysterically. 
Helen held me and comforted me, dried my eyes and made tea for me,
but she never made me put the book down.  She knew it was important
to me. 

It wasn't just that her situation sometimes mirrored my own,
especially the days after I left Trish's apartment and hid in the
derelict building while faceless men were searching for me, or that
we shared a first name.  What grabbed my heart was how Anne was
always trying to maintain some semblance of a normal adolescence
even though she and her family were hidden away in an Amsterdam
attic, where even the slightest sound would betray their presence. 
I wept for Anne's lost childhood, the years that were robbed from
her, the love she'd never know. 

I began to have nightmares after that, vivid dreams in which I'd be
back in the abandoned brownstone, rats scratching in the walls,
jackboots on the stone steps, the sound of the boarded-up door being
kicked in while I shivered on the old stained mattress, clutching
Manny's folding knife in my trembling hand.  Sometimes I'd dream
that I was back in the shelter or the foster home, unseen hands
holding me down on Father Ken's desk while old Mr. Hubbard forced
himself inside me.  I'd wake up screaming and Helen and Bradley
would hold me until I calmed down. 

Helen took me to a counselor, a middle-aged woman with a soothing, 
softly accented voice who had an office just outside the city, in 
Brookline.  I'd lie on her couch and close my eyes and talk about 
whatever came into my head, my nightmares, my guilt that I couldn't 
prevent Megan from getting hurt, how I felt as if everyone that I
loved who had died, even Mr. Antonelli, had somehow abandoned me,
betrayed me.  I began to realize what a mess I was inside.

The therapist, Mrs. Horowitz, listened patiently as I talked,
sometimes  gently steering my monologue, helping me to realize that
my answers were all there, within me, locked away in my head.  I
needed only to find the key.

When she asked me what had triggered my nightmares, I began to talk 
about Anne Frank, her lost youth, how hard it was to stay sane in an
insane world.  There was a long, deep silence when I finished, and I
looked over at Mrs. Horowitz, who was gazing at me with a distant
look in her eyes, a single tear falling down her cheek.  Suddenly I
realized that had Anne survived, she'd be Mrs. Horowitz's age.  I
felt a chill creeping down my spine.

"You were there, weren't you?" I asked her.  "In the camps."

Mrs. Horowitz nodded, reaching for one of the five boxes of tissues
in her soundproofed office.

"Why?  Why do these things happen?"  I thought about Anne, dying of 
typhus just weeks before the Allies liberated the camp.  I thought
about Megan, who had been so close to death that if I had tripped on
the slippery sidewalk just one more time she might have bled to
death. 

"At Belsen there was a rabbi, a learned man, who said that it is God
that lets these things happen," she said, her voice cracking, her
accent thickening just a bit.  "That faith and love must be tested
sometimes." 

"Do you believe that?" I asked her.

"No," she said, shaking her head slowly.

"What do you believe in?" I asked.  I had struggle with my faith
ever since my mother was killed.  My answer had been to pray to
Julia, hoping her memory would give me strength when I most needed
it. 

"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are truly good
at heart," she said, paraphrasing Anne's very words.

This was one of the keys I needed, to free me from the chains of
guilt and betrayal that held me down, the nightmares that made me
dread falling asleep at night.  Mrs. Horowitz gave me a prescription
for some pills, tranquilizers and soporifics, just something to get
me through this stormy weather, to calm my emotional winds.  I
hardly needed them; just talking to her made me feel so much better.
 The nightmares stopped, and soon Mrs. Horowitz told me that it was
time for me to stand on my own two feet.  She encouraged me to keep
writing in my journal, that it was an effective form of therapy, and
that I should always try to go back and read what I'd written
periodically, to maintain a sense of perspective.  At the end of our
last session I hugged her and thanked her, and I left her office
seeing the world anew. 

The other sour note that winter was Brad's return from school for
winter vacation.  He came home with a load of dirty laundry and some
bad grades for the semester.  He seemed like a completely different
person, too, sullen, withdrawn, never once looking me in the eye. 
I'd been so excited to see him again having just missed his
Thanksgiving visit home, carefully primping myself in preparation
for his return, and now it was all ashes in my mouth.  He'd wolf
down his dinner and then go up to his room, and whenever I knocked
on his door to talk to him, he'd turn his music up, drowning out my
voice.  I even tried sneaking into his room at night, just to talk,
since making love with him was out of the question, but his door was
always locked.  Brad stayed for two days and then left to go on a
skiing trip with friends of his, and it was as if he'd never been
home at all. 

I was still seeing Mrs. Horowitz when this happened, and when I
asked her why he was so cold, so rejecting, she had but two words to
say: "People change".  I could accept the truth in these words, but
it was a different thing entirely to experience it first hand.  Most
of the people in my life had been taken from me before I really had
a chance to see this happen.  I wondered if even Julia could have
fallen out of love with me, and the thought made me shudder.

I got over it, though.  I still had the memory of his visit to
Julia's house two summers before, though what I'd thought was the
beginning of our love affair was merely a three-day fling, a mere
bauble instead of a precious jewel.  Maybe there was someone else,
maybe he didn't want a girlfriend who was just fourteen, almost four
years younger than he, maybe he'd heard about my year on the streets
somehow and thought of me as "damaged goods".  Helen swore to me
that she hadn't mentioned anything to her son, but I knew she'd
mentioned a few things to Carrie, in whose room I was staying. 
Perhaps that's how Brad knew.  Regardless, I tried not to let this
ruin my holidays.  Christmas at the foster home had been a drab
affair, with a scrawny tree, unadorned, forgotten in a corner, not a
single present underneath.  I wanted this one to be extra special.


                                  * * *


On Christmas Day Helen woke me up with a kiss, bringing me
downstairs to the living room, to the tree that they'd bought for
me.  Bradley was waiting with coffee, and they watched, seated on
the rug with me, as I opened my presents.  They had bought me a
lovely new sweater, a skirt to match, a strand of pearls to go with
them, and a cherry red silk chemise.  There were fun gifts, gag
gifts, too, like a new vibrator, batteries included, and even one of
those puzzle cubes with six different colors on each side.  There
were presents from me under the tree as well, a nice Italian silk
tie and jeweled cufflinks for Bradley, a supple ivory satin
nightgown and a gold necklace for Helen. 

There was one last gift, a gift that hadn't been under the tree. 
Helen handed it to me, a flat, square object wrapped in gilt paper
and tied with a red ribbon.  I opened it carefully, trying not to
wrinkle the pretty wrapping paper or tear the ribbon.  Inside was a
framed photograph of Julia, taken when she was younger, her
not-yet-grey hair flowing in the breeze, a broad beach and blue
ocean water in the background.  She was smiling, her eyes sparkling
in the bright sunlight. 

"It was taken on her honeymoon with Thomas," Helen said.

"Julia..." I whispered, bringing the photograph to my lips and
pressing them against the glass and then clutching the frame to my
heart.  Tears began to form in my eyes.

"She wanted you to have it," Bradley said.  "It was in her will. 
She wanted you to always remember her like this, young and in love."

"Thank you," I whispered to Bradley and Helen, the lump in my throat
choking my voice.  "Thank you," I said again, this time to Julia. 
Helen put her arms around me and held me.  Bradley must have known
this would happen, because he was right there with the box of
tissues, blotting the tears from my cheeks.

After we had breakfast, Helen drove me in town, back to Delia's 
apartment.  I had gifts for Dee and Cami, but most of all I just
wanted to see them again.  Delia was still asleep, but Cami had just
woken up, and she answered the door in her yellow kimono, still
groggy, rubbing her eyes.  While Helen put on some coffee, Cami and
I exchanged gifts.  I'd bought her a locket on a gold chain, a heart
just like the one Mr. Sheffield had bought for me.  I knew Cami
loved the one I had, the one I still wore under my sweater.  I also
bought her a translucent white babydoll nightie, a lacy little
confection that she just adored.  

There were gifts for Dee, too, a dangly pair of earrings that I
thought would go well with one of her many sequined evening gowns,
and an Eartha Kitt album, one of the few she didn't already own,
that I'd found in a vintage record store in town.  There was one
last gift for Cami, and I was glad Delia wasn't awake to see it.  I
pulled an envelope from my purse, about half of the money I'd saved
up while I lived there, withdrawn from my bank account the day
before. 

"Don't let Dee see this," I told Cami.  "She'll want her cut.  This
is just for you, okay?"

"Annie, I couldn't..." Cami said.

"Please.  Take it," I said, pressing it into her hand.  "I know it
isn't enough to get the breast implants you want, but it's a start. 
And maybe you can see a real doctor and get some better shots." 
Cami got her female hormones from a man in Chinatown who may or may
not have gone to medical school, and who injected her with
grey-market hormones that he had shipped over from Singapore.

"Annie...I don't know what to say," she said, kissing me again. 
"Thank you."

"Sisters forever," I whispered, hugging her again.

"Forever," she said, a crack in her voice.

"Hey, before we both start crying you should try on the nightie," I 
said.  "I want to make sure it fits."  Cami kissed me once more and 
smiled, taking off her kimono and panties and slipping into the
sheer white babydoll.  Just as she was pulling the matching sheer
panties up her milk chocolate thighs, Helen came out of the kitchen
with a mug of coffee for Cami.  There was a thud as the coffee cup
hit the wooden floor.  The mug broke into two pieces and Helen took
a frantic step back, avoiding the splash of hot coffee.

"I...I'm sorry," Helen stammered, her eyes fixed on a spot between 
Cami's legs.  "I'll clean this up right away."

"I'll help," I said, leaving Cami and accompanying Helen back into
the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Helen said again, once we were out of earshot.  "I know
you told me about him...her...but..."

"I know.  It's different in person," I said, pulling a wad of paper 
towels from the roll over the sink.  "She's not a freak, Helen."

"You're right," Helen said, taking the paper towels from my hand. 
"It must be so hard for her."

"You have no idea," I said, knowing the adversities Cami had faced 
growing up in a small town in Georgia, born into a body that wasn't 
really hers.

Delia came out of her bedroom just as Helen was kneeling on the
floor outside the kitchen, wiping up the coffee that had spilled and
collecting the pieces of the mug.  She was wrapped in her long robe
and looked disoriented, as if she'd been up late and hadn't had much
sleep. 

"There's a white woman cleaning my floor," Dee said.  "I must've
died and gone to Heaven."  Even Helen laughed at that.

Cami and Helen disappeared into the kitchen to dispose of the damp 
towels and make more coffee while Delia and I sat in the living
room, opening the gifts I'd given her.  She loved the earrings, but
the Eartha Kitt album left her speechless, her lower lip trembling
as her eyes began to water.

"I miss having you around, Annie," she said, trying to compose
herself. 

"I miss you, too," I said, hugging her.

Cami and Helen came out of the kitchen with fresh mugs of coffee,
and then Cami disappeared into her bedroom, returning with a pair of
gift wrapped boxes, handing them to me.  I really hadn't expected a
present from her, and this caught me by surprise.

"This is from me and Dee," she said.  I opened them.  One box had a
pair of white patent leather go-go boots, straight from the Sixties.
 The other contained a vintage a-line minidress with a pop art
motif, thick black lines and blocks of primary colors, like a
painting by Mondrian, something Twiggy might have worn in 1968.  I
knew that Cami had picked these out for me, and probably paid for
them as well, but I hugged both her and Delia, thanking them for
these wonderful gifts. 

"What can I do to make it up to her?" Helen asked when we were back
in her car, heading home.

"Who, Cami?" I asked.

"Yes," Helen said.  "She saw me staring at his...her penis."

"Cami's got thick skin," I said.  "She'll be fine."

"Still...," Helen said, frowning.

"You're curious, aren't you," I said.

"Curious?"

"I was when I first met her," I said.  "I was dying to know what
she'd feel like inside me, our tits rubbing together."  Helen
shifted in her seat as we slowed down to pay a toll on the turnpike,
a flush blooming on her cheeks.

"Sometimes I have to remind myself that you're fourteen going on
forty, Anne," she said, lobbing coins into the white plastic basket
at the tollbooth.


                                  * * *


It was on New Year's Eve when we drove into town to pick up Cami. 
Delia was singing that night and Cami left a note telling her where
she'd be.  We went out to dinner at a nice place in town and then
drove back home, back to the suburbs.  While Bradley uncorked a
bottle of Moet, Cami and I changed into our nighties.  She donned
the sheer white babydoll I'd given her for Christmas, and I wore the
pink nightie I'd bought at Mrs. Pomerantz's shop that day I first
met Trish.  

We rejoined Bradley and Helen in their bedroom.  She wore the ivory 
nightgown I'd given her for Christmas but Bradley was naked, his
half- hard cock bobbing between his legs as he poured champagne for
us.  We sat in their big bed and watched 1981 turn to 1982, toasting
just as the brilliantly lit ball in Times Square descended.

Helen made the first move, lifting Cami's nightie and suckling her 
nipples as she stroked Cami's penis through her sheer panties. 
Bradley lay behind me on the bed, caressing my thighs as we watched
Helen and Cami make love.  I turned around and began to suck him as
he watched his wife take Cami's cock in her mouth.  Once Cami was
hard and glistening Helen mounted her, guiding the dark spear into
her cleft.  Bradley had my panties off by this time, licking my
pussy and climbing on top of me.  I held Cami's hand as we lay on
the bed, Helen riding her hardness while Bradley slowly pumped my
moist snatch. 

We spent hours in that bed, coupling in all conceivable
combinations.  Cami sucked Bradley's cock and then he took her from
behind while Helen and I fingered each other and watched.  Then we
licked the cum from each other, making each other buck and thrash on
the satin sheets while Cami and Bradley rested up.  I mounted
Bradley again, taking Cami in my ass, Helen laying next to us and
playing with our tits while we rocked together, trying to find the
right rhythm.  We all ended up spent, tired from the meal, the
champagne, the sex, falling asleep in a twisted pile of arms and
legs and naked bodies. 

When Bradley drove her home the next morning, Cami was $1000 richer,
enough to be able to afford the tits she wanted.

"You were right," Helen said, making coffee for us while we waited
for Bradley to return.  "Her tits felt wonderful against mine."

"You know, you can always buy me a strap-on," I said, making her
laugh as she poured water into the coffee maker.


                                  * * *


In those first days of 1982, I managed to tie up some of the loose
ends of my life.  I'd sent a Christmas card to Mr. Sheffield,
through his firm, and he sent letter in reply, telling me about his
holiday with his daughter.  I wondered if he'd touched her, or if
he'd somehow gotten it out of his system when he was with me.  The
truth was somewhere in between: he'd found someone in London, a girl
who looked like me, like his daughter, another surrogate for his
desires. 

Larry was doing pretty well, having dug himself out of his child
support hole, even buying another taxi medallion.  He called it an
investment in his daughter's future, as that piece of tin riveted to
the trunk of a cab was appreciating rapidly, already going from the
$65,000 he'd borrowed to pay for it, approaching the $100,000 mark,
giving him some equity to work with.  The last I'd heard from him he
was about to buy another medallion.

Larry had followed Cecil's travels through the legal system, mostly 
relying on what was reported in the newspapers and on television. 
Cecil had pled guilty, sparing himself and his family the public
humiliation of a trial, and was sentenced to twenty years in prison
on various charges.  The cops had stopped looking for me, the trail
now cold. 

I tried to find out what had happened to Manny, Billy, and
especially Megan.  Bradley made some discreet inquiries through a
Family Court clerk magistrate  who was an old friend from college. 
Their records weren't merely sealed; they were missing altogether, a
bit of legerdemain worthy of the Witness Protection Program. 
Bradley had to drop his search, lest he leave a trail that could
lead back to me.  The Church had circled the wagons, and the real
story behind Father Kenton Foley and his shelter wouldn't come out
for another twenty years, courtesy of a Boston newspaper's
investigative reporting team. 

There was one other loose end in my life.  On a cold day in early 
January, Bradley and Helen drove me to a cemetery in Cambridge, a
place where many famous people had been buried.  Julia was laid to
rest here, and we stopped off to buy flowers for her grave,
long-stemmed red roses instead of the usual calla lilies.

Her headstone was in a copse, a small depression surrounded by tall 
trees with bare branches.  A cold wind blew that day as I knelt by
her grave, placing a dozen red roses on the mound of earth beneath
which she lay in repose, at rest, at peace forever more.  It was
close to the anniversary of her death, and though I would have liked
to visit her sooner, but between the nightmares I'd been having and
Brad giving me the cold shoulder, Helen felt that I wasn't strong
enough to do this until now.

But on this day I had the fortitude, the strength to kneel by her
grave and talk to her, to lay my flowers on her final resting place.
 A single tear streamed down my cheek, nearly freezing as it stopped
at my chin, Bradley and Helen keeping a respectable distance,
letting me commune with her, speak to her.

"I'm safe now, Julia.  You can rest now, you can stop worrying about
me.  I'm with Bradley and Helen and they're going to take good care
of me.  Thank you for watching over me, for keeping me safe."  I
touched the cold headstone that had her name engraved in it, just
below the name of Thomas, her husband.

"I'll always love you, Julia."

Bradley and Helen each placed a pebble on Julia's headstone, next to
a few others.  It was a tradition, something to show that the grave
had been visited, that the departed one hadn't been forgotten.  I
did the same and then we drove back home in silence.

There was a message waiting on the answering machine, and Bradley
went into his den to return the call.  He came back out a few
minutes later. 

"Annie, I think I've found your father," he said.


                                  * * *


So, here I sit in Terminal C at Logan Airport, writing in my journal
while I wait for my flight to be called.  Bradley and Helen drove me
to the airport and saw me off at the gate.  School doesn't start for
another two weeks, but I'll be flying back to Boston from Phoenix
after a ten day visit.

The search for my father had come up empty at first, but it had to
be done in order for Bradley and Helen to become my legal guardians.
 Even though the search was fruitless at first, due diligence had
been satisfied.  It wasn't until later that it became known that a
folder had been misfiled, and though it was too late to affect the
results of the guardianship petition, I still felt like I had to see
my father, my only living blood relative.  Even so, in talking to
him on the phone, I felt like I was talking to a stranger.  He was
eager to see me though.  It had been over ten years.

My father, Frank Mercer, lives just outside of Phoenix, in a
development called Rancho Paradiso, a community of nice homes built
around an 18- hole golf course.  He sells real estate there, and
lives in one of the first homes built at Rancho Paradiso, along with
his third wife, who is seven months pregnant with his child.  Also
living with him are two children from his previous marriage, a boy
and a girl, their mother having run off a few years before to live
with some religious group at their ashram in Oregon.

Talking to my father reminded me of one of my earliest memories,
from when I was three, sitting in the bath while my he rubbed a
washcloth between my legs, pressing the cloth into my cunny.  The
memory made me feel uncomfortable, and I shifted in the terminal's
plastic seat, wondering if he was the same person who had been
caught with the babysitter by my mother, an event that led to their
divorce.  The words Mrs. Horowitz had said to me when I was upset
over Brad's sudden coldness came back to me: "People change".  I
guess I'll find out how true that is in this case.

They're calling my flight now.  I'm sitting across from the tall
glass windows that look out on the apron, the runways, the ocean
beyond.  The plane is directly opposite from me, the sun glinting
off of its shiny silver skin.  In a few minutes I'll be airborne,
galloping off into the sky, the clouds my highway.


Coopersport, Maine
February 2003

 
                                  * * * 
 

(c) 2003  Anais Ninja  anais_ninja@hotmail.com 
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/anais_ninja/index.html

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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