Meeting Her Pt. 03: In Bed

Then she thought about our first meeting, when the theme was movies. In "Last Tango..." the affair took place in an apartment that was used exclusively for that purpose, nobody lived there. That showed greater dedication to the affair itself, even if neither of the two were married. There were other exceptions, she recalled a movie where a group of men rented an apartment then arranged a schedule to use the space for their affairs, that was even cheaper because cost was a consideration from the start, it reduced the women they took there to furniture.

As soon as she said that we both looked up and said "Soylent Green," the classic sci-fy movie about a murder mystery in the future. It depicted a poorer world where women came with apartments as "furniture" for wealthy tenants.

"But this apartment and the bed in it are even more tawdry," she claimed. "You see, my bed and the apartment were a gift to me from my first lover, and that whole affair was with an older man and the most sinful besides!"

I looked again at the signs, the furnishings, the appliances, the furniture, this had been her place for a long time - more than the 5 years she was married.

"Was it from a teacher?"

"That would violate the rules, but would not really be sinful."

Isabel finally whispered that it was a secret gift from her Uncle Ivan, who loved her a great deal. The way she said that indicated the apartment was just a small part of the story... and the "love" had a lot of meaning. She had already said he was her first lover and her uncle, what more could there be? She said I did not yet know the worst sin associated with the apartment's bed. Explaining that took some time.

The story was both twisted and sordid, a whodunit of sex and murder and who knows what. Also long and complex and hard to follow.

It started with Fritz Brumhuld, Isabel's great grandfather, a wealthy man who's several children included her grandfather Martin and her great uncle August. There was also Aunt Christina, a younger sister to Martin and August, she married a judge who played a part in a real estate deal.

I was paying attention and something didn't seem to fit what I had been told. I thought that August was the father of Curtis, who was her father, so I asked why she called August a great uncle. Her reply was, "that is part of the twisty stuff." Her grandfather was her great-uncle? Suddenly it was more interesting, suggesting incest or something similar.

Then she started talking about World War II, which changed everybody in the world.

August, a chemical engineer, was enlisted to convert US factories to the war effort. It was a critical job, FDR told him he was competing in a race with Albert Speer to produce the weapons of war, each doing their part to determine the future of the world. FDR's production chief told August, "Swords are easy to produce, but machine guns kill a lot more brave soldiers than swords. We have brave men, we need you to give them better weaons... powerful weapons." It turned out that August was a production genius and a demon at getting factory conversion jobs done much faster than folks said they could be done, and safer besides. That was important when making high quality, consistent bullets, bombs, guns etc. for the war. Employers and employees thanked heaven that he was on our side.

Of course, after the war, who did rich folks call to convert the factories back? He was much in demand, and for that, August did not limit himself to a government salary. He formed a consulting firm and asked for a huge retainer based on how fast the conversion would be started. What choice did the factory owners have? They were thankful to get him no matter what he charged, without the wartime contracts the factories and workers were sitting idle. The factory owners paid what he asked. In essence, August used the war to jump-start his post-war success.

August's brother Martin served in the Army Air Corp, flying a B-25H. This was a bomber converted to a low-level winged terror with a dozen or more large machine guns plus a fracking TANK main gun in the nose, all at the fingertips of the pilot. The technique for Jap ships and troop positions was coming in fast and low ("mast height") to open them up with a wall of steel and high explosive for devil-dog Marines to follow. The B-25 was a big plane for one pilot to handle, but Martin was an expert at the difficult and unforgiving flying required. (At low altitude, pilots made high-speed turns while all the lift fell off the ends of their wings. When all the lift falls off you are no longer flying, you are falling, no matter how much power you apply. Unlike a fighter, one mistake kills the entire air crew.)

Martin found, unlike his brother, that the post-war world had no great need of pilots who were Jap-strafing experts. Working for his brother did not interest him. So he hired out as a bush pilot, but that was a tough business. He alluded to having his personal B-25 warbird stashed someplace in the South Pacific, but that was a very expensive and labor intensive toy to maintain so it seemed unlikely.

Fritz's other children married and had successful lives, although none came close to August for success or Martin for disappointment. When Fritz and his wife died many found reasons to leave the area, for places like Texas, California, and their grandfather's homeland of Germany. Only the youngest sister, Christina, married a local lawyer and stayed in town with August.

Martin eventually drifted back home where he was the disappointment of the Brumhuld clan. (Somebody had to be, Fritz raised them that way, to compare each other.) Martin bought and sold airplanes as a hobby until he had two aircraft of his own, a single engine high-wing Cessna and a faster low-wing twin. He used these to train other people to fly, it paid the bills but was erratic and not a real career.

Martin did show a unique talent for trouble, especially in the women he chose.

At one point he found two of his part-time girlfriends were pregnant. Marriage was not an option, both girls were poor ex-strippers who were demoted by age and heavy use into making cheap porn in the period before porn became popular. The two boys they birthed were named Curtis Hightower Brumhuld (he was given Martin's last mane) and Ivan Hightower Summers (his Mother's stage name). Ivan was born 3 months after Curtis. Both poor mothers identified Martin as the father on the birth certificates. Martin acknowledged both infants as his. At the births neither women was aware of the other woman's relationship with Martin. Choosing the same middle names was Martin's doing.

August Brumhuld was the opposite of his brother Martin, he was a successful chemical engineer and a slightly unscrupulous successful businessman in his own right, with a letter signed by the President naming him an American Hero. He took control of the Brumhuld family fortune. August married Elvira Hightower, the last of the wealthy Hightowers who had a major role in the city's history. They had a semi-arranged marriage, Elvira led a sheltered life. Like royalty, she selected August from a short procession of rich qualified suitors presented to her by her parents.

Elvira could not bear children so she would be the end of the line, but not the name. Her family placed their considerable fortune in the Hightower Trust which was charged to associate their name with lasting educational, medical, scientific and community endeavors. The foundation Board included community leaders, but August headed the group. Elvira would live a long and comfortable life, but after her life the trust would not go to enrich any individual, only to the the broader community, as directed by the trustees. Like August.

Martin was aware of his brother August's marriage and success. He was thinking of the future his out-of-wedlock sons would face when he urged his two girlfriends to add "Hightower" as a middle name when they named their illegitimate sons Curtis and Ivan. This was a crass attempt to appeal to his brother August and his childless sister-in-law Elvira, who were going to die without children as heirs. Martin resolved to tell his brother about his sons "when the time was right."

When the children were around one year old, both mothers were shot with different guns during visits to Martin's isolated rural home. One mother was shot while naked in the bed, the other had her coat on and was in the hallway. Shots were fired between 11:15 and 11:35, several gunshots were reported each time. There was no way to tell who was shot first; both had gunshot residue but no guns. Both bore evidence of sex within the previous few hours. Both women were desperate for money and told friends that "a payoff was coming that weekend." Some friends thought the money was from an extended sex party. The women did not use their usual baby-sitters, but there was no sign of the babes at Martin's house. Martin's blood was present in the house, but that was not a surprise. There was no way to tell for sure if he was shot or hurt in an accident.

This was a period when the local police had very limited forensic and investigative resources. DNA was a science fiction theory. There were no computer databases for fingerprints or firearms, and the post-war world had plenty of guns. No gun was found at the house. Even the type of gun was conjecture as no bullet was found near the bodies.

There was one.30 bullet found well away from the bodies, but this could have been fired at any time by a rifle (M1 carbine) a revolver or an automatic pistol.

Just before midnight Martin took off in his single-engine Cessna, telling the tower he was bound for Canada. No landing was ever reported. On the previous flight a possible engine issue was logged, it was scheduled to be repaired soon. It was presumed the engine failed with the plane crashing in one of the Great Lakes. Over a year later a Cessna seat cushion, stained with Martin's blood type, was found on the shore of Lake Superior. Some years later Martin was declared dead.

Some time after 11:30 that night the two infant boys, Curtis and Ivan, were left inside the home of August and Elvira, with their birth certificates and a note from Martin. They were discovered around 2:15 in the morning, that was the first August and his wife learned of the children's existence.

Elvira had prayed for children she could never have, she saw their names and fell to her knees giving thanks, as if an angel brought her the children from above. For then on, nobody would dare take the children from her. Any blood relatives they might have never publicly presented themselves.

There were various theories of the murders: Martin killed both women, one woman shot the other and Martin shot in self defense, or perhaps there was a third woman. Martin may or may not have landed somewhere in Canada safely, perhaps at an empty airport in the night, possibly refueling and then flying outside the search radius - he had been a bush pilot in the huge Northwest Territories. Maybe he flew south instead, he was known to have shady friends in Texas. Perhaps he had the third women - like the babysitter - with him. It was a fact that police were not sure what shooting had been a crime, so it was never charged.

There were two clusters of shots reported, with two to four in rapid succession in each cluster. Witnesses indicated 20 minutes between clusters. Police responded to the first cluster but could not locate it. They were close enough to arrive at Martin's rural house by 11:50, which was estimated as 15 minutes after the second cluster. Between the second cluster and takeoff there was not enough time to drive from Martin's house to the airport, much less detour east to August's house, then go west to the airport. It also took a few minutes to ready the plane for flight. However, the takeoff "before midnight" was well established.

In any case, with Martin and the two women out of the picture, August and Elvira raised their two wards as their own, with all the benefits that wealth could provide. They did not adopt as they maintained Martin was still alive.

"So the point is, both Curtis and Ivan were raised by a man who was successful, but was really their uncle, not their blood father. That is important," Isabel said. "Also, with only three months between them, they were basically treated as twins."

August raised the boys with the same drive for success as his own upbringing. Both children were successful in their fields. Curtis pursued a career in academia and, with the heavy-handed backing of the Hightower foundation, became the university president much earlier than usual. Ivan was very successful in real estate, August taught him all the tricks before he was 25. Despite the different paths the half-brothers were very close. Maybe too close.

During the years when Curtis and Ivan were between 18 and 23, both courted Isabel's mother Elle Grace, and she often confided to that it was hard to choose "just one." They did not press Elle to make a choice between them, instead they took turns and thereby monopolized her time, keeping her from any other suitors.

To her daughter Isabel, as part of her 'birds and bees' talk, Elle confided she did not always have to settle for one, she was intimate with each both "before and after..." and hinted that some special times (her birthdays) involved both men visiting her bed together, eager to please her body in all sorts of wonderful indecent ways while she was wrapped in the arms of the other. It was a tempting thought to young Isabel. To return the indecent favor she brought each man another woman to join the fun on the man's birthday; the men liked to watch two women because it raised what was usually exhausted, and Elle liked to be watched by a man when she was being pleasured by a woman.

"So your enjoyment of women which you mentioned from the tennis, that followed from your mother? Did you know that then?"

"Oh yes, Mom was open talking about her urges. She and Daddy both kept the other in the loop. She did not stop doing women until I was born, before that she only took a time-out from her female lovers for her month-long honeymoon - plus she hosted a seasonal 'ladies only' sleepover when she got back from her honeymoon. She also played tennis, she was city champion and that provided her with additional partners... of both flavors. But she only allowed Curtis and Ivan to... well, you know, do things that might get her pregnant."

Finally Elle settled on Curtis for her husband, Ivan was the happy couple's best man and the trio "stayed close." Elle claimed her wedding night - which involved all three plus possibly a few others - was a absolute scandal and the best night of her life. The couple was alone together during the honeymoon, but Curtis had to travel for a week soon after they returned home, so with her husband's encouragement the young bride spent that week in Ivan's house, where she would not be alone.

Ivan's house had a tennis court. "I packed a tennis outfit, but that was all," Elle told her daughter. "I did not use the guest bedroom. Curtis and I talked every night while Ivan was extremely close... spooning inside me actually... sometimes there was a notable pause for excitement during the phone call. I didn't feel unfaithful that way, because I had my husband's active blessing. He knew everything, the two men planned - or maybe I should say they plotted - the phone calls."

Isabel said that after Elle talked to her husband, Ivan always took the phone and recounted the previous 24 hours of the bride's infidelities as part of the call, because the young bride had her mouth full.

For Curtis, success was in academia. One of the first foundation projects after he joined the faculty was the 8-story Hightower Administrative and Faculty Office Building on campus. August and Elvira made sure that Curtis was attached to the project at every opportunity. It was no surprise to most older faculty when the university board voted to give Curtis tenure, and the university president gave him a department chairmanship, at the first opportunity. He was only on the faculty for three years at the time. He didn't even apply for the tenure, which is, in itself, a time-consuming process. The various faculty committees somehow met in special session in the Board Room and approved his tenure without the usual paperwork. In fact, during those 3 years Curtis exceeded the requirements for scholarly work required for tenure, so he would have been automatic at seven years. But some folks were special and clearly met the requirements even when they didn't. From there promotion was the norm for Curtis, he advanced to Dean and then Acting Provost; each advancement was more an issue of getting other folks out of the way gently when Curtis suggested their time had come.

For Ivan success was more piecemeal and out-of-sight. He went into real estate development, raising buildings and property values for everything he touched. Each project made him (and his backer, the Hightower trust) more money than the previous one. He accumulated a great deal of wealth but nobody knew how much.

The only business project the two half-brothers were both linked to was this block of apartments. On behalf of the university, which needed parking space, Curtis persuaded the city to condemn the run-down student housing on the block. The owners had to sell cheap and the only buyer was a holding company Ivan secretly controlled, other potential buyers found their way blocked. The judge who was married to August's and Martin's sister Christina (and was therefore the uncle of both) was central in the condemnation, but the relationship was not obvious.

"Uncle Ivan had this apartment built for me. Nobody else knows about it, especially not Daddy or any of my family... or Jorge. A life trust was my birthday present when I was 19. When I was 28 Ivan also set up all of my wedding arrangements in Nevada; it was beyond anything Jorge could do, and I wanted to move too fast for mother, who really did not approve of my choice. Actually, my parents wanted me to marry a meek, compliant underpaid English teacher so I would live at home while I gave them grandchildren to spoil. They did not know Jorge well, but it was clear that with him, that was not going to happen. Ivan liked Jorge even less, so he arranged the wedding somehow so I could exit with little hassle."

I had to ask, "What can that mean?"

Isabel's tone and demeanor was a little mysterious in her reply. "Well, that would be another secret... it is actually something that is secret from me. One secret is enough for tonight; you are the only person outside of the real estate lawyers that knows about this apartment. It is 'need to know' and it seems my pussy needs you to know. Now, I think it is almost time for some more fun in the bedroom."

Some things I don't argue about.

Ribs, shrimp and cheesecake eaten with the fingers can get a bit sticky, so we went to the bedroom by way of a quick detour through the shower together.

There, as the water was warming and she was dealing with the shower cap, she confided another obscene urge she had: she wanted to rim my ass. That was a little harder to take. I knew it would feel damn good to me, but I knew she would kiss her husband and the act would affect my view of Jorge.

My suggestion was that we take a quick rinse, then do the other in the future. She agreed that there was no hurry.

When we got to the bedroom Isabel confessed to a conflict of desires. "I told you my ass was yours any time you want it, I meant it then and I mean it now. But after what we did before, I want you in my pussy even more. I truth, I want to go to sleep tonight with your stuff running out of my pussy."

"Won't your husband notice?"

"He thinks I am staying overnight with my folks. I usually do that once or twice a month. Without me around Jorge can get lots of work done. Tonight my parents will cover for me, they know I am with a friend. They think I am getting myself a lesbian fix, it is something I did sometimes, even after marriage... like my mother."