Black & White & Red All Over

Vanessa sighed. "Yes, you do. It's time to tell you why, I suppose. This will take a little while. I think wine is called for. Rory, would you pour us some chablis?"

I brought the bottle and glasses from the kitchen to the coffee table by the couch. We sat, Vanessa between Dora and I. I poured and passed the glasses. We sipped. Vanessa leaned back and sighed again.

"I grew up on the New York-Quebec border, on the Mohawk reservation. It was rough there, and I was a wild girl as soon as I grew tits. I ran away a lot. I fucked whoever I could. I wasn't totally stupid. I usually made them wear condoms. Usually. But there was this one white guy...

"So I was pregnant at fourteen and a mother at fifteen... and gone, right after. No way could I be a mother! I ran off again, to St Louis, and then Tulsa. To be a whore.

"I survived on the streets for four years. That was a miracle. The other miracle was one john, a big Kiowa. He rescued me. He put me through school. He married me. He was the love of my life. He gave me a daughter and a son."

Vanessa took a sip of the fruity wine. She set her glass on the table.

"And then he died." Her hands went to her eyes. She cried.

Dora and I both held her. She sobbed, then pushed us away.

"Oda Jax Nelson, O-J to everyone, gone at age thirty, R.I.P. The strongest, bravest, kindest man I've ever known. With a brain tumor that didn't care.

"I went wild again. I left the kids with O-J's sister Carrie. Damn, I gotta say, what O-J was as a man, Carrie was as a woman: sweet, caring, tireless, generous. I owe her my life, and those kids' lives. Bless her!

"But I just couldn't stay with the Nelsons, or anywhere around there. I ran off again. I didn't have to hook anymore. I had secretarial and language skills and business training now. I got temporary jobs, no sweat."

Vanessa took another sip of wine and swirled it in her dry mouth.

"I met this man in Mobile, another big strong guy, coal black, a stevedore at the port. I was temping in the port office. We clicked pretty quick. I moved in with him. I felt better.

"And then he was arrested on a fugitive warrant and returned to prison in New Jersey. He'd been convicted of murdering a friend who was screwing his wife. He escaped, and made it south, and got forged papers, and got the job in the port. He met me and fucked me and kept me even after I got pregnant.

"The cops came for him at work. He was on the docks. I was in the office. I heard commotion. I looked out the window and saw him being hauled off. I ran out screaming but some guys grabbed me and held me until the cops had gone.

"He'd escaped before. They were gonna make sure he didn't repeat that trick. He's stuck in soliary confinement for probably forever. I never saw him again. All I had left of him was in my big belly."

Dora looked shaken by Vanessa's words. I saw her trembling nervously.

"I was a wreck again. His mother knew about us. She flew in, and cared for me before and after my daughter was born, and then she took the baby. She liked me but none of the other family did. They sent me away."

Tears oozed from Vanessa's eyes again. Dora looked quietly shocked.

"That was a quarter-century ago. I wandered around some more. I ended up here in Long Beach. I got a business job. It paid well. I bought this old house - it was cheap back then. I lived alone here. I did good for a few years. Then I got these nervous attacks, real paranoid, and they seemed to trigger the narcolepsy.

"It was O-J's sister Carrie who found me and cared for me and saved me. She found me free-lance writing work. (Funny - being crazy helps me write!) She kept me on track. She kept me treated and medicated and fed. She loved me like a sister, and more than a sister.

"And before she died, way too young, she found Rory. Rory was helping her with me when she had her heart attack. She just fell over, boom. Since then, it's just been Rory and me.

"Rory and me, and the children I don't see, and now you, Isadora. All different. A white son and an Indian son. A black daughter and an Indian daughter."

Vanessa drank more wine. We followed suit. Vanessa visibly braced herself.

"That's the outline of my life, everything but the names. My daughter and son by O-J are Sandra and Jason, Sandy and Jase. You know about them already. That white man who knocked me up when I was just a kid was a Dutchman named Willem VanOwen. Rory's father. The black man was Bradley Davis. Isadora's father. You kids - you are both my children."

Dora's mouth was a black 'O'. Mine was paler and just as open. Holy shit! We've been fucking our mother! I've been fucking my sister! Holy shit!

*****

NEXT: Do our incestuous trio say together as a loving family? Do they pay a price for their incest? Do they search for and find Sandy and Jase? Do any ghosts from the past appear? Does Vanessa reminisce about Big Black Cocks or her affair with Carrie? Hey, anything can happen! Stay tuned! (And vote, to encourage the author to write the sequel.