Variations

Schaeffer.

ACT ONE

HER NAME IS ELISE

Scene One

Her name is Elise. She became my father's second wife when I was five years old. My birth mother had divorced him when I was three and promptly disappeared from my life. My memories of her were faint and fragmentary even then. When Elise appeared she swept away all distinctions between step and real mother. Perhaps because she was so young herself she quickly overcame my shyness, becoming at once my playmate, my co-conspirator, and my friend as well as my mother. I was calling her that within three months of the time she entered my world.

When I was seven years old my ultra trendy father decided that he wanted me to call them by their first names. So overnight it became Carl and Elise. She never spoke of it although I always suspected that Elise didn't really care for the new arrangement. That was still early in their marriage, however, and she believed in her husband. She assumed that he loved her.

I am Jacob or Jake if you prefer. Let's get past any questions of either false modesty or inflated ego right from the start. I recently turned twenty one and while I think I'm reasonably good-looking no one will ever mistake me for a movie idol. My sandy brown hair and clear complexion probably come from my birth mother’s side of the family. Unfortunately almost everything else including my pale washed out blue eyes, hawk-like nose, and slightly off kilter angular features are part of my father's genetic gift to the next generation.

I may not have been the best looking guy around but I had no difficulty finding female companionship as I grew up. I suppose I was living proof that any young man with a big enough wallet can be Brad Pitt. As Carl Delanty’s only son – – Yes, Yes, I know. That Carl Delanty – – it was assumed that my wallet was large even when it really wasn't.

That's enough about me for now. This story isn't really about me even though I played an important part in it. No, the focus of the story is Elise, the most extraordinary woman I have ever known. Even now I find it hard to decide where to begin telling you about her.

I suppose that with Elise dance provides the best starting point. From the age of four she trained as a ballet dancer. She once told me that she didn't really have the proper body for it but I never agreed with her. Elise might be shorter than most prima ballerinas – she's barely five four- but I could never believe that her height mattered. I have seen videos of her dancing when she was seventeen. The taller girls on stage with her completely vanished whenever she moved. You could not take your eyes off of her. At least I couldn't.

When she was eighteen she was on the verge of moving up from the local ballet company to the New York City Ballet. She already had the offer and was packing her bags when it happened. In what was supposed to be her last performance locally, the clumsy oaf acting as her partner dropped her during a simple movement. The fall broke her right ankle in two places and brought an abrupt end to her professional hopes. It was while she was recuperating that she was introduced to a wealthy older man. Even then Carl Delanty was known as the Lord of Finance, the local version of King Midas who turned every investment if not into gold then into tidy profits for his clients.

Carl could be single-minded and all-consuming with his bigger than life personality. He threw his charm, money, and masculine energy at her at a time when she was most vulnerable. She was young and she was overwhelmed. In less than four months Elise had become what snide gossips called his first trophy wife.

I know it would have offended her to be labeled that way but if she were a trophy wife she was certainly one worth having. Her taunt, well toned dancer's body, long rippling brown hair, shining chocolate brown eyes, and delicately featured face that shone like a star when she smiled caused other men to stare at Carl with envy. I think he gradually came to enjoy those jealous looks more than he really cared about her. I didn’t realize it then of course. I was a typical clueless kid and she had become my mother. It would take a severe mental shock to break that mindset and show me a new reality.

When we look back on our lives we can see those pivotal moments we did not appreciate when we were experiencing them. In my case it happened when I was eleven years old. We had gone to spend a week – the longest time Carl would take off from work – at our family beach house. Elise liked the seashore. Her body was made for the white bikini she wore that day, a daring creation made up of a few pieces of material that barely covered the essential areas. It has always been part of her charm that despite her jaw-dropping beauty she can be completely oblivious to the lascivious looks she draws from men. There certainly were plenty of them that day as she walked up the white sand beach holding Carl's hand. I was reluctantly trailing behind them looking down for shells when an unusually large wave came crashing in.

The surge of water caught Elise completely by surprise. She had just let go of Carl's hand so she could skip with childlike exuberance into the ocean. The liquid wall struck her and knocked her squealing head first into the swirling water. As the wave receded it literally pulled away both the top and the bottom of her bathing suit. When she stood up, a new Venus rising from the sea, I saw complete female nudity for the first time in my life. The magazines I had swiped from Carl's study didn't count.

At eleven the juices and urges of manhood had only just begun to flow through me. In that moment I experienced enough internal emotional turmoil to keep a team of psychiatrists busy. I told myself that I should look away immediately. This was, after all, the woman I had once called mother. Other feelings were at work however. My image of the ideal woman was formed forever. Elise has small teacup sized breasts, perfectly shaped. At that stage of my life I had never heard of a Brazilian wax but she had undergone one so she could wear her newest bathing suit. I immediately assumed that all beautiful women must have that same smooth unblemished flesh between their legs.

It took her a moment or two to realize that both halves of her bikini were well on their way to Hawaii and that she was standing knee-deep in sea water on full public display. She stumbled backward two quick steps to let the foam from the surf reach her waist while she strategically placed her right arm over her breasts.

Carl, bring me your shirt. She sounded embarrassed – not surprising – but with a clear touch of merriment in her voice. She was too much of a free spirit not to appreciate the humor in the moment. I was still twenty feet away staring in fixed amazement when I heard her giggle. Then her sense of amusement faded and her expression changed. My father, Carl the SOB, was not rushing to assist her as he should have. Instead he was standing with his arms folded, looking first at her and then at two young men who had been jogging past as Elise emerged nude from the swirling water. They had nearly fallen over themselves staggering to a stop and were staring at her with a ferocity I was too young to understand. I did know, however, what one of them meant when he whispered something to his buddy and touched his crotch.

I think I understood at the same moment as Elise that Carl was enjoying the situation. He looked directly at the two young men as he grinned triumphantly, a taunting expression that seemed to say Look all you want. She belongs to me. At that instant I didn't know who I hated more, the men ogling her or my own father who was treating her as a display of his male prowess.

Suddenly Elise dropped her hand away from her breasts and came striding out of the water, not in Carl's direction but toward me. She didn't run or exhibit the slightest sign of self-consciousness. She held her head up high with a regal disdain for the entire world around her. Her expression exuded an aura of complete defiance. She had seen what Carl was doing as well as the leering stares of the two joggers. By flaunting her nude body, she was figuratively spitting in all of their faces.

I had never felt so conflicted in my whole life. I desperately wanted to watch her approach, to drink in all of her exquisite beauty but a son isn't supposed to look at his mother that way. She was my mother wasn't she? For the very first time a voice deep in my mind screamed out No! No! No she isn't. While I mentally wrestled with the contradiction I tried mightily to turn my eyes away from her. I never succeeded.

When she reached me I yanked off the T-shirt I was wearing over my swim trunks and held it out to her. Already showing some signs of the height I would eventually achieve, I was slightly taller than she was. She accepted the shirt from my trembling hands, smiled at me, and kissed my cheek. My face turned crimson with shame and pleasure. Instead of putting it on, she wrapped the shirt around her waist like a sarong leaving her breasts proudly uncovered.

Come on Honey, she whispered to me taking my hand. Walk me back to the house.

Elise! Carl was standing dumbfounded as we started back up the beach. Even he had been surprised at her defiant reaction. Come on, Elise, it was only a joke.

She was still gripping my hand when she raised her right hand into the air and thrust her middle finger straight up. I couldn't keep from laughing and I gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. That was Elise then. She took no shit from anyone including Carl. Escorting her up that long sandy expanse of beach as my father trailed behind sputtering weak attempts at apology is still one of my favorite memories – a memory made better by the furtive glances I sneaked at her bare breasts as we strolled along.

She and Carl made up later that night. I didn't understand it then but Elise was trying very hard to make her marriage work, to close the cracks already opening in her relationship with her husband. I also did not know how important I was to her efforts. Unfortunately, Carl did know and he was fully prepared to exploit all of Elise’s feelings for his own benefit. So sometime that evening his whining claims of contrition wore her down. She forgave him. That was always Elise's greatest weakness – the quality that made her most vulnerable. She forgave too much, too quickly.

I awoke in the middle of the night with a pressing need to visit the guest bathroom. As soon as I stepped into the hallway I could hear the groans, gasps, and moans coming from their bedroom. Consumed with a prurient curiosity I sneaked on bare feet down to where I could peer through a partially opened door into the master suite. They were on their bed, Carl stretched out on his back, Elise astride him. A small night light on the other side of the bedroom provided the only illumination. I suspect Carl wanted that bit of light so he could watch her, savor her facial expressions as she strained her body to give him all the pleasures she could grant.

At the age I was then I didn't fully grasp what was happening on that bed. Of course I knew they were fucking- that's the first dirty word an adolescent boy learns – but I didn't know the precise mechanics of it. More to the point I didn't comprehend the emotional interplay underlying the sexual act. Elise was trying to make love to her husband. Carl was enforcing his dominance, demonstrating his control. Love was not his concern.

I could hear him grunt as she rocked back and forth driving his manhood up inside the soft recesses of her body. She rose and eased herself back down as his flesh slapped hard against hers. She was turned away from my hiding place so I could not see her face. I could only listen to her trembling cries as he thrust into her with a brutal intensity. In the low light I could see his face, red, sweating and contorted with pleasure and triumph. There was no tenderness in his expression, nothing that looked like love.

I should not be doing this. The thought was sharp and clear slicing through my mind. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I would to go to hell for it but I could not move. To my complete dismay I felt an unexpected heat grow in my groin, felt hardness take shape between my legs. I had just put my hand down to touch it when I heard Carl cry out in a prolonged roar.

He had rolled her over onto her back, pounding his pelvis against hers as she moaned in response. My memory of this moment has been reshaped, modified by my own subsequent experiences. I know now exactly what Carl was really doing. He was attacking her with an animalistic fervor, punishing Elise for daring to confront him. He was taking out his rage on her body. I could plainly see the expression on his face. It bore the same contemptuous sneer he had given the men on the beach – a look of possession – an expression that reflected ownership but not passion, not even affection. My dear father was simply claiming what was his.

The raw guttural groan of climax ripping from his throat startled me so much I jumped backward. He screamed out again as he slammed his body up and down completing his conquest. Then he slumped down pinning Elise beneath him. When he rolled off of her and onto his feet he was still panting.

Damn, baby, he growled. That was great. Nobody fucks like you do. Carl was the suave master of delicately tender endearments.

Carl she whispered holding out her arms. Don’t go yet. I haven't… I want you.

He laughed. He actually laughed at her. I’ve got to go piss. You just keep the fires going and I'll be right back.

Even after he had walked away Elise lay on the bed holding out her arms to a man who would not fill them. I could barely hear a choking sob as she rolled over onto her side. Once again I leaned back certain that she had seen me lurking outside her door. Then I realized her eyes were tightly closed but still unable to contain the tears rolling down her cheeks. She drew her legs up toward her breasts and slipped her hand between them. I watched transfixed as she massaged the most private part of herself, searching for the physical release her husband had denied her.

I retreated back to my bedroom where I masturbated for first time in my life. Well… I laid a hand on my penis which exploded in white juices. Restraint, timing, and technique were skills I had yet to acquire. In the next year I worked on those talents through repeated practice in a variety of places, many of them completely inappropriate. I was lucky that I was never caught in the throes of adolescent self-gratification. My real problem lay in the fantasies, the mental images I called upon to fuel my urges. No matter how hard I tried to picture someone, anyone else, in that last moment before climax it was always the same. Elise, walking nude out of the surf or curled up on her bed hungry for someone to return the love she was offering. By the time I was thirteen I was absolutely certain that I was damned beyond all redemption. Boys who thought of their mothers or even their stepmothers in the way that I did had to be twisted perverts. Pervert-that became my own private nickname, the label I attached to myself.

If possible, it got worse as I grew older and Elise more and more became the central focus of my life. She always loved the arts – ballet, symphony, movies, and live drama. When I was younger we attended performances and went to museums as a family but Carl’s interest in those things that did not lead to profit soon waned. His indifference turned to boredom and then to outright hostility. He would still buy the tickets but at the last moment beg off attending. I suspect Elise was a little hurt at the beginning. Then she and I both found a new pleasure in being together without Carl.

I welcomed his absence. In my mind I became Elise’s date, her devoted escort to all the artistic events she cherished. It would have been wonderful if all I had received in return was the pleasure of sitting beside her in the dark and feeling her hand resting on my arm. Elise, however, gave me so much more – a gift as precious as it was unexpected. She taught me to share her devotion to art, to music, to dance. After seeing a performance we would sit together talking for hours about all the hidden meanings. She explained the subtle symbolism, the craft hiding below the surface. Watching her eyes sparkle as her smile glowed with enthusiasm, I knew there was no one else on earth I would rather talk with than her.

I had a growth spurt when I was sixteen shooting up close to my present height of 6'2". I was spending a lot of time in the gym that year working off my baby fat. The weight loss gave my face a more mature appearance. Elise never seemed to age so now when we attended live performances we looked much more like a dating couple then mother and son. I saw that assumption in the faces of waiters and ushers. I liked it.

I liked it so much that I was disturbed when our usually vacant third seat was unexpectedly filled one night. Carl, who never came to opera, had elected to attend a production of La Traviata. My mood improved when he left us at intermission. It turned out that he had only come to manufacture an inadvertent encounter with a wealthy potential investor. He was marketing the latest of a long series of investment schemes and customers were customers where ever he found them. She never said but I wanted to believe that Elise was not sorry to see him go. His snoring in Act one had been a little disconcerting.

The illusion of a teenage boy and his date played out unexpectedly just after Carl departed. Elise decided that she wanted a glass of champagne. I escorted her to the bar, standing behind her, while she ordered. The bartender, a sour looking older woman, glanced at me and then studied Elise’s youthful appearance before requesting identification. She had just turned thirty and from her stunned expression I couldn't tell if