Chapter 3
CASE HISTORY: Luise G., 28 years old, dark hair, fair skin, green eyes, a well-modeled girl; time in institutions for alcoholism; never married, no children. Stay at Hope House 52 days.
I know it's a little uncomfortable to sit here in the dark, but that's why I picked this time. I couldn't tell you all this and have you watch my face-, I just couldn't. I have to get it all out, or I'll explode.
I've never tried to talk it out with psychiatrists. Not while I was locked on one of those wards for alcoholism. Somehow, that didn't seem right to me, confessing in a place like that, and to a man who didn't really care if I lived or died.
Here, it's different; everybody seems to care. Everyone seems to want me to get sober and stay sober, and they all go out of their way to help as much as they can. That's never happened to me before, or if it did, I was too wrapped up in myself to notice.
Let's see. Where shall I start? The psychiatrists always tried to get me talking about my early childhood, my toys, how I felt about my parents and my brother. I didn't have a sister; perhaps it would have been better, if I had. Then I might not have focused so much attention on my brother. I've often wondered about that, but I also come up with the idea that a sister would have been competition, and I wouldn't have liked that very much.
I was very close to Leon, my brother, and I also became too close to someone else in the family, but I suppose it's best to take the story one step at a time.
Leon was a year younger than I, but the gap could have been a century; I felt so much older-so much wiser than my little brother-only that isn't right, either; Leon wasn't little. He stood several inches taller than me, and was much, much heavier. It was just that he was childish in many ways, while I'd always felt very mature.
We lived for several years with my mother; our father had deserted us some time back, and mother worked to support the family, although she did own the house outright, and there had been some money left in the bank account. She was nice enough to us, but always busy, and when she announced she was marrying another man, I don't suppose Leon and I cared very much one way or another; I do recall thinking it would be nice to have another man in the house.
I was eighteen, and I won't start lying again. I'd had sexual experiences for almost two years, and I'd had my share of beer and whiskey by then, too. My experiences with boys a year or two older didn't quite gratify me, though; I was looking for something more powerful, something more romantic than squirming around on the back seat of a car.
Perhaps I had my knight in armor when my stepfather, Kelly, came home to stay. He was forty, with dashing gray hair and a charming smile; he had dark eyes that probed into a woman, and I could see why mother married him. He was handsome, and he was sexy, with an air of danger about him. He was also an accomplished lecher, but I didn't know that about Kelly then. I just swooned in my room, thinking of him.
I cut myself off from dating boys, shied away from the boys who'd been back-seating me, and confined myself to worthwhile projects around the house. Knowing so well what I wanted, needing a stepfather's arms around me in any thing but a fatherly fashion, I began to drink more, from the bottle I had hidden in my room.
Hanging around the house so much, afraid to leave and afraid not to, I began noticing that my brother Leon was a good-looking kid. I stared at him as he moved through the hall, and knew what it was like at his age. He was in a strain and didn't quite know why; he wanted and needed sex but was too young, the adult world told him. And thinking like that, I somehow put myself into Kelly's place; I thought of myself as the teacher.
I drank for courage, and some more for guilt, and one day when mother and my stepfather were gone on a weekend trip, I lay in wait for my brother in his own room. I had liquor ready, with ice and mixer, and his record player going.
He came slamming into the house from playing ball, and he was all sweaty. Surprised to see me waiting stretched on his bed, he said: "Hey; you're supposed to cook dinner."
"Take a shower," I said, "and we'll have a drink before dinner."
He stared at me, then at the bottles on his dresser. "Whatta' you know? Be right out, Big Sister!"
I had on a dressing gown, a green satin thing that had no buttons and belted loosely about the waist. It went well with my hair. I also had on some fuzzy white slippers, and nothing else. I was tingly, and the drinks I'd had were skipping through my blood.
When Leon came wet-haired from the shower, I handed him a drink. "Cheers!" He had a towel knotted around his hips.
"What's the party?" he asked, sipping the drink.
I finished my glass and refilled it. Copying, he drank his down and signaled for more. He'd feel the jolt in a minute; he wasn't used to the stuff, and I knew it.
"You're a virgin, aren't you?" I asked.
His eyes popped wide. "I-what the hell do you-no, no, of course not. I-I've had plenty of girls!"
I smiled at him over my glass. "That's a hell of a thing to say," he blustered. "My own sister-"
"Drink up," I said, feeling devilish, feeling old and experienced, and at last admitting to myself that there had been an attraction for me here ever since I reached puberty. "Drink up, Leon, and I'll tell you about our little private party!"
When he'd finished his second drink, his face was flushed. I dropped the belt of my dressing gown and moved close to him, sliding my arms around his hips.
I covered his mouth with mine. I pushed my body tightly to his semi-nude body, and the robe fell away as I'd intended, so he could feel my bare breasts against him. I kissed that boy as he'd never been kissed before, with hunger and an excitement that filled me to bursting. Involuntarily, his arms went around me, and I used that moment to untie the towel around his hips.
I moved into him, holding his mouth with mine, pressing him to me with my arms, slowly rotating my hips in the movements of lust. Leon responded silently, quickly, and I felt his maleness rise suddenly against me. I drew back my head, broke the lingering kiss and stared into his eyes.
"On the bed," I said. "Pick me up and put me on the bed!"
"Yeah, yeah," he said, and was clumsy with me, but strong.
His hands roamed over me, making new discoveries, and I took his wrists to guide them better, to show him and have him feel. He shook all over; he flinched when I took him in my own hands, but I kissed him until he settled down, and then I pulled him over on top of me and showed him what to do, showed him how to fit himself into me.
It was brief, but savage; it was new to Leon, so he was hurried, but I simply drew him in and held onto him. In that first spasming of his virginal passion, I rode it out and was gently insistent with him in his recovery, and then-and then we were in that seeking frenzy once more. This time it lasted; this time I was carried away, hurled high into that lunging, suctioning world where only the male and I existed, and when the thundering pinwheeling climax erupted for me, I kneened high and mad in my throat.
Leon was very sweet. He was so grateful, so humble. We spent the entire weekend together, drinking and eating and making love in every way I knew-which didn't actually mean much. It was more than enough for Leon.
I used my brother, but he also used me. Once his initial shyness was overcome, he was eager; he couldn't stay away from me. For weeks after, he would sneak into my room late at night, and I felt him naked under the covers with me. I never denied him, or myself. It was still good for me, but I found myself making mental images still, found myself writhing in my brothers' arms and seeing the face of my stepfather.
I schemed how to trap Kelly. I plotted it well, and if my trap failed, Leon would be on my side. We would vehemently deny everything; we would accuse our stepfather of dirty lies, and no doubt mother would file immediately for divorce, No playing on the side for mumsy; no hint of illicit passion. Her coldness had driven my father away, and perhaps I never forgave her for that. But her puritanical attitude would backfire on her this time; it would drive her present husband to someone who could give him all the healthy abandoned desire he wanted. To me.
Mother was gone to a bridge club, and Leon had an important ball game that Saturday. Kelly was in the house, restless. Leon was in a hurry, but I made him wait; I forced him to make love to me in my own bedroom, and while he was doing it, I used my foot to push a china doll off onto the hardwood floor, so the crash would be heard downstairs.
Leon didn't hear; he was panting with me, straining to me, shoving his strength to me, and I absorbed him, all his maleness, all his force, because I was stronger. I watched the doorway over Leon's shoulder, watched beyond his nakedly heaving back to the partly opened door, and I saw him.
My stepfather's face was a study-shock and interest and desire moved across it in waves. I gave him a show to watch. I lifted Leon and practically devoured him, and my brother ended with a lurch. Kelly's face was gone from the doorway as Leon rolled off the bed ;and got back into his clothes, and I knew I'd won. If my stepfather had been really outraged, he'd have come boiling m while the raw act of incest was in full swing. He hadn't, so I had won.
Leon trotted downstairs and out of the house, and I had three quick drinks while I waited. I was well into the fourth one and wondering if Kelly was merely going to keep silent when I heard his step on the stairs. I lifted one knee and lay back on the now smoothed bed. I posed in the nude, holding my glass in my right hand.
He didn't knock; my stepfather came into my room and looked down at me on the bed. He said: "You wench."
"Yes," I agreed, "a wench, but warm and beautiful and available!"
He took a step toward me, and another. He wasn't smiling his charming smile, but his dark eyes were smoldering. He said: "With your own brother."
I smiled, "And, my stepfather, I wanted you to see us together; I kicked over the doll and left the door open."
Kelly was also wearing a robe and slippers, as I'd done when first I seduced Leon. He stood beside the bed now, and kicked out of the slippers, dropped the robe to puddle around his feet. His body was pale and lovely. I smiled as I reached for it.
But he caught my hair instead. He ordered me to swing my legs over the side of the bed, and he held my hair as he brought my head into his stomach. My stepfather wanted me, all right, but in his own fashion, and that was something I'd never done before. He made me do it; he stood over me and held my head in his strong hands, and I learned what it was to excite a man who'd been around a lot. It wasn't bad as I'd imagined, and immediately after it was finished, Kelly went upon his own knees and caught my legs, one in each hand.
I went insane. I moaned and tried to wriggle away from his expert ministrations, because wave after wave of intense feeling poured through me, electrifying every nerve in my arching, shuddering body.
I was in a half-faint when he at last lifted his head. He swung my limp and unresisting legs back onto the bed, and levered them so that I rolled onto my stomach. He covered me then, with himself, with his knowing, probing self, and I could only respond weakly to this new approach. His hands lifted me to him; his driving need controlled me, and my spinning mind repeated over and over: so this is how it really is!
My stepfather controlled me after that; his were the orders, mine were the obedient answers. He came into my room every time mother was away, and if he wanted to beat me lightly with his belt, I stripped for the beating. If he wanted me on hands and knees, that's how it was, too. Anything and everything for him, and always I called him father, never Kelly, but father.
The affair blew up one Sunday afternoon. Leon had turned sullen when I stopped doing it with him, and he spied on me. He found me on my knees in front of Kelly, and there was a terrible fight. But like a young bull, after he'd knocked Kelly down, Leon turned his passion on me, unable to resist my naked and wanton submissiveness.
Mother found the three of us nude, and took only one horrified glance before running to call the police.
Leon? He was locked away in a juvenile home, as I was, but I got out much sooner. My stepfather jumped bail and disappeared. I never really gave a damn what happened to Mother. I got out of the institution and into another, wayward girls to a psycho ward for alkies.
It wasn't difficult for me to find an older man who'd support me, and my habit. I preferred older men, and they could tell; they ate it up. But when I'd get crazy drunk and break things, there'd be trouble. The drunks got worse and the troubles worse, and I lost man after man willing to pay my bills. I'd dry out on some fidget farm, either plush or state-supported, and come right out to another bottle and another man. The whole rat-race would start again. But last time, I found Hope House, and I'm trying to make a clean break with all of it.
No,-please don't turn on the light. Just let me slip away in the dark. Notes on CASE HISTORY of Luise:
She'd purged herself to me, this lost girl, and when we talked again, I pointed out that some of the faults lay in her unconscious hatred of her mother and the rivalry she felt with her mother, over a man who'd abandoned both of them. In substance, when Luise seduced her brother, she was defying her mother and convention, proving herself more loved. When she seduced her stepfather, she was in effect proclaiming her triumph over the other woman by stealing the husband-the father image.