Aphrodite Shuddered - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

What's Mom Going to Think?

All the trouble started in the summer of 1985, after my girlfriend Angie and I moved into a double-wide trailer near the airport, south of Seattle. Although I made a good enough salary at the Xeno Corporation to afford to buy a house, I was (and still am) a dreadful penny pincher. It really wasn't all that bad, though - tacky yet comfortable.

Angie was a waitress at the local Denny’s Restaurant and spent all her tips on cocaine. She was a prototypical Denny’s front-counter girl: a short-lovable-white-blonde, with a self-destructive streak compensated by an eternally cheerful and kindly disposition. She liked to joke that the only reason she started going out with me was because of my name: Denny. We didn’t have much in common aside from our mutual enjoyment of getting loaded, sleeping and screwing - usually in that order of frequency. Sometimes, in looking back, I cringe thinking about my lifestyle in the mid-1980s. But in that era, and in that particular place, it all seemed perfectly normal.

A few months later we met an extremely attractive neighbor of ours, Tina, who lived in an apartment building on the corner. Tina, a young black woman possessing a hard and wiry body like an aerobics instructor, worked as a check-in clerk at a Hilton hotel close to the airport. She was tough minded except for having allowed abusive men to treat her like a doormat. But she, in turn, treated chumps like me like a doormat. She reminded me of one of those junior-high school she-devils who terrorizes all the boys.

Angie and Tina became fast friends after Tina began frequenting the Denny’s Restaurant where Angie worked, which was located right across the street from the Hilton. Soon Tina was visiting our home several times a week, playing cards with Angie and me for hours on end. I had no idea that Angie and Tina were playing much more than Hearts or Spades while I was working the swing shift.

Immediately captivated by Tina’s brash personality and exotic dark beauty, I developed a secret crush on her. I had never fantasized about another woman while making love to Angie, but now when I closed my eyes, l vividly pictured Tina’s bright, confident smile and smoothly muscled cocoa-brown body.

About a month after meeting Tina, my fantasies boiled over during a particularly intense sex session with Angie, and I hissed into her ear as she moaned at the approach of her climax: "How'd you like to watch me with Tina, huh? I bet she fucks like a beast. Would that be hot, huh?"

"You bastard!" she cried as her body trembled under my furious thrusts.

Immediately afterward, reality set in and I said, slightly embarrassed, “Um, I'm sorry, Angie. I just got a little carried away. You know I love you.” After a moment of silence, I said, “Hey, are you really mad at me? It’s just a dumb fantasy. Damn, I'm so stupid - ”

“I ain’t mad…” Her voice faded, like she was drifting off to sleep. But just as I was about to fall asleep, she jostled me and then haltingly said, “Uh, Denny, I was gonna tell you, but I thought, I thought you’d get pissed.”

“Huh? Tell me what?” I mumbled in confusion.

“Me and Tina. We, we’ve been together. Together in bed. I never thought I would get involved in something like that - ”

“Whoa. No shit?” Now I was wide awake. The thought of them naked together made my blood pressure rise in excitement, but then I started wondering why Angie would do such a thing in the first place. “Are you happy with me, Angie? Sex-wise, I mean.”

Holding me tightly, she laughed against my chest. “Sex-wise you are just fine, Den. Sometimes, I don’t even need to fake it.”

“You’re doing wonders for my ego.”

Sliding her slim right leg around my hip, she reached for my groin. “Are you serious about it? I mean about Tina. She doesn't show it but she's attracted to you. She joked around with me and said that we oughta make a sandwich out of you - HA!. You know how crazy she gets when she drinks, but maybe she wasn’t kidding.”

I laughed incredulously and said, “She really said that?”

“Heh-heh - you dirty boy, it’s turning you on.” Then she ducked under the covers and started sucking.

“Yeah...ah, yeah it is,” I sighed.

* * *

A few days later, after Angie informed Tina what I had suggested, Tina hinted to her that she would not mind it. Thus began our torrid three-way affair. I didn’t brag about it - or even mention it - to the few friends I had made since moving to the airport area. For one thing, I didn’t want sex-starved guys constantly hanging around trying to soak up the “surplus”, as it were, something I would have done had I been in their unfortunate shoes.

 Soon I heard a rumor from one of Tina's co-workers that the clean-living Tina was also going out with A.J. Davis, a local drug dealer . Davis was a familiar character in the neighborhood. I had seen him many times at the restaurant where Angie worked, and at the hotel bars near the airport, not far from home. Ever since Tina had brought him over to our place, one month ago, Davis began coming over regularly to make small talk and sell Angie trivial amounts of cocaine. Having my own drug "problem" with marijuana, I thought nothing of it at first. But I began to feel put-out because he then got presumptuous, dropping by the trailer unannounced late one night, interrupting a good fuck. Fortunately it wasn’t a total loss: after Angie got her coke from him and returned to bed with a snoot-full of nose candy, it was a great fuck.

* * *

November 1985, two months later:

Angie was intently snorting a line of coke in the living room when I came home from work one evening. Still in a lousy mood from a hectic day at the office, I flared-up at her: "Why do you still buy that garbage, Angie? You quit your damned job, so how the hell can you afford to - “

"I didn’t buy it. A.J. gave it to me, Denny," Angie said. "I can't afford it, that's for sure," she added in an feeble attempt to mollify me.

I said, "Don't encourage him to hang around anymore. I already told you that I don’t appreciate the dude coming over at odd hours, or when I'm not home.”

"Do you still remember what you told me when we met? That we don't own each other? Well, A.J. is my friend - I like him a lot.” Her voice sounded almost hopeful as she ventured to ask, ”You're actually jealous?"

"No. You should know me well enough by now.” But no matter how I tried to suppress it, I did feel a twinge of unjustified sexual jealousy. “It’s just that, how much do you really know about that dude, anyway? He's probably in a gang, like the Crips. Wait - Crips wear red. Or is it blue?"

Laughing at my ignorance, she then said, “I’m starting to think that you don’t like him just because he’s black.”

“That’s just stupid. Tina's black too, remember?” However, in the back of my mind, I felt insecure, thinking, “His cock is probably twice as big as mine”. “...I'm just tired of worrying that the police will kick-in the door whenever he shows up - he's a bust. So if you wanna snort that shit, do it somewhere else from now on.”

"And what about all that weed you smoke? It's illegal too - duh! You're being hypocritical, as usual. Do you get paranoid about the cops when Rick comes over to sell you weed?“

“It’s not the same thing - “

“Don't I have a fuckin' say about what I do here or who visits me? I pay half the rent on this place, y'know."

My annoyance quickly turned into petty cruelty: the thought occurred that Angie - now amongst the unemployed - was at my financial mercy, as I knew she hardly had two nickels to rub together. Then I began speaking without thinking. "Well, you can pay all of the rent, as far as I'm concerned. I make decent money - I can afford a much better place than this dump whenever I feel like it. I could even buy a house - "

She seemed unimpressed. "Oh phht - don’t bother! Anyway, I don’t believe you, because yer so cheap. And yer an asshole for threatening to move out because I don't have a job. Hell, I could be back at my old job tomorrow if I wanted to.” With false cheeriness, she dropped a bombshell on me, “Oh, and has Tina told you that she asked me to move in with her?”

I laughed at the idea. "Tina won’t put up with living with you for long. She ain't a druggie like us, and hell, she doesn’t even drink a lot. But at least you won't have to worry that she'll snort-up your stash. You know, I bet A.J. is already dealing dope out of her apartment when she's at work. He’s just a user, Angie. Guys like him'll take over your life every time."

“You’re trying to do the same damned thing! You pretend you’re a caring person, but actually you’re the most selfish person I ever met!" I owned most of Ayn Rand's books and naively tried to live up the Rand philosophy. To my disappointment, she had never shown an interest in reading them. She was more into the books of James Michener and Stephen King.

"Selfish? If you had been more selfish and took better care of yourself, you wouldn’t be reduced to couch-surfing now.”

“Up yours - I’m leaving!”

“Well, have a nice life, Angie. But if you end-up a coke whore living in the gutter, don't come begging to move back in."

Angry, red-faced Angie went for the jugular, spewing mindlessly, "You unfeeling phony! Sleazy pervert! Sick fuck! You need porn videos to get-off!"

Her words stung me like a wasp attack, but I managed to put up a last-ditch defense. “That was below the belt, especially considering the fact that you were watching them with me. Doesn’t that make you a sick fuck too?” Angie favorite porn video in my collection featured Johnny “The Human Tripod” Wilcox, whose nickname is self-explanatory. As Angie stormed out of the living room, I idly wondered if Ayn Rand had ever seen a pornographic film. Then I called after her: “Well, grab all your pathetic belongings and go, then! I’ll live like a fucking king with you gone!”

“King Shit, you mean!”

* * *

Having never been in a long-term relationship before, and not used to being separated from Angie for any extended time, I was unprepared for the pain I endured in her absence. To make matters worse, Tina sympathized with her, of course, so she was off-limits to me now as well, a situation that I, cursing myself, had not foreseen. The first few sleepless nights were filled with tortured fantasizes about Angie, Tina and A.J. Davis performing the raunchiest sex acts imaginable with each other. Finally, after two weeks of lonely boredom, I called Tina apartment and talked to Angie. After the tentative exchange of greetings, I found myself begging her to come home. To my utter surprise and relief, she began blubbering about how much she missed me.

Once we had kissed and made-up, life at home became more-or-less blissful again, particularly since Tina stayed overnight with us on occasion. I was also pleased that Angie had returned to her old waitress job, though it meant she would be indulging in cocaine more often than ever. My attitude about that, however, was ambivalent, as many of our friends and acquaintances used a various assortment of illegal drugs.

Late one night around Thanksgiving Day, Angie and I were relaxing in our bedroom, drinking cocktails. Looking for a good movie to watch, Angie rummaged through the stack of video tapes I had rented recently. She joked, “No new X-rated movies, Denny? Your old ones are so worn-out you can hardly tell what's going-on anymore, you've watched them so many times.”

“Yeah, right, blame all the voyeurism on me. But with you and Tina, I feel like I'm living in a porn movie, so why bother watching it anymore?”

In mock fury, she replied, “Oooh, so it wasn't until Tina got involved with us that you felt that way! You must not think I'm hot enough to make porn!” Then she affected a pouting disappointment

“Hey, don't start a fight right now. I feel too good. And don't be so down on yourself - you'd make a damned sexy-looking porn actress.”

“You'd better say that,” she replied while sliding Ghostbusters into the VCR. “Hey, Tina was telling me the other day that A.J just spent, like, five thousand bucks on video equipment. How much you wanna bet that he'll use it to make porn?”

“What else would he use it for? It's hard to imagine that thug earning a living making wedding videos.” I slowly shook my head. “Tsk - I can't believe that Tina's still going out with that dude. He treats her like shit, and she's definitely not the masochistic type. That's what I can't figure out.”

“Those two have a long history together. Can you keep a secret?”

“Yeah, but I don't think I wanna know what it is.”

“A.J. used to be her mom's boyfriend.”

“Whoa – that's way too much information.” Taking her by the hand and pulling her into bed, I said, “Let's drop the whole sordid subject and enjoy the movie - or something.”

“Yeah, lots of something.”

* * *

December 31, 1985 - early morning

Angie tried talking me into accompanying her to a New Year's Eve party at A.J.'s apartment. But I begged off, having a previous engagement to attend that evening's NBA game between the Seattle Sonics and Los Angeles Lakers. She had no interest in basketball whatsoever, and nagged, "Aw c'mon, Denny, it'll be fun. A.J. told me to tell you that you're invited, so there's no excuse for you to be unsociable this time."

"Bah - I'm not unsociable - he really invited me? I didn't think he even liked me.”

"Whatever gave you the idea that he doesn't like you?" Teasing me, she added, "Did I mention that Marta will be there too?" Marta Eichenburger was an appallingly sexy blonde German girl - age 16 - who lived in the apartment next door to Tina, and who was a casual friend of Angie’s. She was living in Seattle only because her father - a Lufthansa Airline pilot based in Frankfurt, Germany - was undergoing training on the new 767 airliner, at a Boeing facility north of town. Angie was amused by Marta's obvious attraction to me and by my subsequent awkward behavior every time she came near me.

After a moment of hesitation, I shook my head and said, “Naw, Angie, I’m going to the game. Some of my co-workers will be there too - that's sociable enough for me." I added in jest, as I departed for work then, “Have fun tonight but not too much.”

Angie didn't relate anything of particular interest to me about the party, other than that she and Tina had nearly come to blows during a drunken, screaming argument, the cause of which Angie couldn't remember. Seven days later, at around 6pm, I came home from work to an empty trailer - not an infrequent occurrence of late. A Post-it note stuck on the living room phone read: “Back soon xoxo”. Then I poured myself a double shot of rum and turned the TV on in the bedroom. Finding nothing of great import on the network news, I hit the power button on VCR, which then ejected a tape that Angie had neglected to remove from it. The handwritten label on the tape read: New Year's. Mildly curious, I shoved it back into the VCR and watched the remaining minutes of the goings-on from A.J.'s party.

Dozens of guests were crammed into his large, expensively furnished apartment, and many of them took the opportunity to act-out for the camera: boisterous young black men guzzling 40-ounce bottles of beer and flashing what appeared to be gang signs, intoxicated young women of various races displaying a naked thigh (such as Angie), or a boob, or (such as Tina and a gorgeous oriental chick) playfully tongue-kissing each other. The last example may explain what had precipitated the drunken fight between Angie and Tina that night.

After about 10 minutes, the tape seemingly ended, since the TV screen suddenly filled with static. But just before I was about the stop the tape, the picture on the screen slowly began to clear again, revealing a completely different recording. Evidently the party antics had been recorded-over the previous contents, although not over its entirety.

Now, a naked girl, her pale blonde hair obscuring her face, was sensuously swaying her lithe body in a room that looked vaguely familiar to me. I assumed this footage was just part a commercial porn video that A.J. had taped-over. That is, until the young lady turned and smiled beautifully for the camera. “Holy fuck - Marta!” I exclaimed in bewilderment. I also recognized A.J.'s distinctive baritone voice now giving her direction in the background.

I will refrain from describing the acts which this 16-year old performed with the two adult men who entered the picture a minute later. Suffice it to say that the recording certainly qualified as being child pornography (ironically, although it is legal in most states to have sexual relations with a 16-year old, it is very much illegal to photograph, film, or videotape it). Before I could recover from the shock of seeing all that, a different sex scene began. In the same room, the same two men who had been screwing Marta were now naked in bed with two other girls, who didn't appear to be a day over 15. When the illicit action began to get X-rated, the tape abruptly ended and began to rewind.

A surreal feeling came over me, as if I had merely imagined what I just saw. Then I watched the sex segments again, not from prurient interest but to try to identify the location where they had taken place. Upon viewing it again, it struck me: it was videotaped in a room at a Hilton Hotel, perhaps the same hotel where Tina was employed. Being the lead night-shift desk clerk, she had once given me an informal tour of the hotel, not long after we first met.

What the hell am I gonna do NOW – Christ! I debated with myself what should be done with the tape, whether I should ignore it, destroy it, hide it, give it to the police or what have you. I couldn't decide what to do with it as yet, being hesitant of going to the police for fear of retribution from whichever street gang A.J. was affiliated with. Because of that distinct possibility, I would keep everything secret for the time being, even from Angie. One thing I could do, and as soon as possible, was to inform Marta's parents about their daughter's ill-advised relationship with a known cocaine dealer/aspiring porn producer. Then I got the idea of taping a copy of the offending video footage. This I easily accomplished, before Angie came home, by cabling both of my VCRs together. Twenty minutes later I stashed the copy in the tool box in the trunk of my car. If I ever had a run-in with A.J. or his gang pals, I figured I could turn it over to the police - A.J. had made the mistake of showing his face on camera

After Angie returned that evening, I casually mentioned viewing the party tape. She replied, “Good, I need to give it back to Tina tomorrow. She borrowed it from A.J.. So, what did you think of the party? Sorry you missed it now?”

“Not really. I hate parties where I hardly know anybody. And some of those guys I saw there, I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.”

“For gawd's sake, Denny, you can be so paranoid sometimes. It was fun - I didn't have any problems with anyone.”

“All the same, I don't want you going over there anymore.”

Starting to get irritated with me, she brusquely replied, “Oh don't worry about it - I didn't plan on going back!”

Next morning, after Angie had left for her shift at Denny's Restaurant, I looked through her address book in order to get Marta's phone number, but I didn't see it there. Nor did I find a likely “Eichenburger” listed in the local phone book. A 4-1-1 phone call inquiring on new listings under that name turned up nothing as well. I did know their home address, though, as they lived in the apartment next door to Tina. So I typed an anonymous letter to Marta's father, in which I revealed just enough about his daughter's activities with A.J. to rouse his paternal anger, as well as giving him A.J.'s general description and his full name: Anthony J. Davis. To ensure that he read it, I made the business-size envelope look as official as possible, typing a real return address of The Boeing Company, though using a fictitious contact name: “Mr Harold B. Katz, Airline Personnel Training Liaison”.

Five days after I mailed the letter, Angie informed me, “Well, Den, your little girlfriend is gone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know - Marta. Her folks sent her back to Germany. Are you heartbroken?”

I was swept with a sense of relief. “Merely devastated. But I'll get over it, eventually.”

“She really had a mad crush on you. Hey, Tina's expecting us for dinner tonight, you know.”

An hour later we walked to Tina's apartment. After dinner, Tina showed me some new wrestling holds she had learned from her step-brother years ago. I secretly enjoyed getting her angry at me and listening to her insulting responses, so, as we stood face-to-face and grappled with our hands and feet, I told Tina: “I know what you’re thinking, Amazon. You think you can knock me out, huh. Don’t even try it. You’ve haven’t seen my bad side yet, which is the only side I ever see of you.”

“Yer yellow, Hercules - I can see it in yer eyes.”

“My God! I got hepatitis!”

Shaking her head, Tina laughed, “Damned fool!” While she was thus distracted, I twisted her left hand around behind her back in a wristlock.

“You taught me well, Amazon.” My stiffening cock was tight against her shapely, muscular ass.

“I’m gonna kill ya for sneakin’ up on me like that!” Before I knew what happened, she had reversed the wristlock. The doorbell rang just then, so Tina released the hold and then hip-tossed me to the orange shag carpet as if I were a sack of potatoes, melting my erection. "Take five, Hercules," Tina breezily said, striding to the front door while I rubbed my sore tailbone.

A.J. Davis strolled through the doorway and acknowledge Angie and me with a casual wave. He was a stocky black man in his early thirties, dressed in a pastel green shirt and white sport coat, looking like a villain on Miami Vice. He and Tina huddled near the door. I overheard Davis asking her, "You seen Marta today? When I called her place, her mama hung up on me."

"She went back to Germany," Tina said.

Davis sneered, "You're a damned liar, she said she ain't leavin’ till next month!"

“What’s up? You hung-up on a 16-year old? What are ya, some kinda child molester?”

"Aw fuck-off, bitch." Evidently upset that his beautiful Teutonic Ice Princess had fled the country, Davis stormed out of the apartment, rapped on the Eichenberger's door, and then he called out, "Marta! Hey, Marta!"

Running after him, Tina angrily shouted, "Hey, what're ya doin', you dumb muthafucka!"

I peeked outside. Then the Eichenburger's front door opened. Marta's father was wielding a golf club as he came out on the landing. “Is your name Anthony?”

A.J. gave him a friendly grin. “Yes sir.”

“Filthy svinehoont! This instant the polizei I am calling- you shtupped my Marta!" .

"Yo, dad, watch what yer doin' with that putter!" A second later, Mr E’s putter connected with Davis' right kneecap. He howled, "RAH! You cocksucka!" Retreating in pain, Davis limped/skipped to the parking lot. “Big mistake, dad! Big mistake!” he hollered from a safe distance.

A short time later, a Prince County Deputy Sheriff knocked on the Eichenburger's door as Angie and I left Tina's place, but I played dumb with the cop, since I wasn't keen to explain to my involvement with Marta, not with her father standing right there - he probably would have knee-capped me, too.

Copyright 2014 by K.D. Bishop