Sari's Bargain

Chapter 5. Crises Are Upon Me.

Then came crisis time; two events fell upon me that added together brought me to one of those turning points in life.

The first and less severe crisis occurred when my current girl friend decided she needed a change of sex partner. The new sex partner proved to be a lecturer in a subject that she was not getting good marks in. It was noticeable that after sharing his bed, her marks in that subject improved dramatically. No doubt it was the extra private tuition she was receiving; or something like that.

The loss of my girl friend did not bother me all that much. I had a couple of possible replacements in mind, and I only had to decide who was to be the lucky girl.

The second crisis was more severe and threatening.

Father had gone off on one of his cases to a distant city. He had left the house looking very irate. There had been yet another but more severe than usual argument or row between him and Sari. Whilst not being able to hear what it was about, I could certainly hear their raised voices, especially father’s bellow.

After he had gone I heard sobs coming from their bedroom, but despite the slight warming up in our relationship, I still did not feel at liberty to go and enter the bedroom to ask what had happened. I did, however, decide that I would join Sari for dinner that evening instead of being with Lisa and Josie in the kitchen.

I had come to realise that the increasing tension between Sari and father had been at least in part responsible for Sari’s unfreezing in relation to me. Isolated within the household, she was reaching out for a friend. Her frosty manner towards Lisa and Josie had put them completely off-side and in any case they were both far older than her. I was very nearly the same age as Sari, so perhaps she thought I might be susceptible to a closer relationship.

Dinner in the dining room was usually far from an intimate affair. The table was large and father would sit at one end and Sari at the other. If I was present I seated myself on one side somewhere in the middle. On this night Sari moved to sit beside me.

Somewhere during the second course right out of the blue, Sari asked, “Do you dislike me very much, David?”

I nearly choked on the food I was trying to swallow. I felt like an animal, suspecting a trap, and wondering which way to run. I opted for what I hoped might be a safe response, and answered her question with a question.

“What makes you think I dislike you?”

“David, you’re not a fool, you know why I’m married to your father. Surely that must be a threat to you.”

I tried for another escape route. “Sari, I don’t really know you; until recently you’ve been almost completely aloof. I might have disliked you for that, but how am I to know what if anything else I might dislike about you?”

“David, you’re being obtuse. We both know what I’m here to do, but if I must say it, I’m here to provide a replacement for you.”

I managed a laugh. “Yes, I know.”

“Don’t you hate me for that?”

“No, why should I?”

She looked at me as if trying to puzzle something out, so I went on; “You are to provide father with a son who will do as he’s bidden; a son who will follow in father’s legal footsteps. I’m certain father has told you all about my defiance of his wishes, the obdurate and wilful son who chose to study medicine instead of law.”

“Yes, he has.”

“If you provide him with what he wants, then I’d be very happy for him, and I’m sure you’ll be well rewarded.”

Sari turned pale and her face became grim. “That was a cruel thing to say.”

“What?”

“That I should ‘be well rewarded’.”

I realised that I had been thoroughly insensitive, and apologised; “Sorry Sari, I only meant that father would be very grateful to you. Having a son to follow him in his profession would mean a great deal, a very great deal, to him.”

She suddenly looked very downcast and simply said, “Yes.”

“If you are concerned that I might be angry or bitter about his wanting another son, then put your mind at rest. I made my own choice knowing how father would feel. I must say that you came as a bit of a surprise and if you do give father what he wants, I’m sure he won’t, as they used to say, ‘Cut me off without a shilling’. Even if he did, he has never the less provided the wherewithal for me to study medicine. I shall be able to make my own living. So if you’re worried that I might drag you and your offspring through the court one day to get at the inheritance, then forget it.”

Sari pushed back her chair, stood up and left the room without another word. I had touched a raw nerve in her and felt somewhat ashamed but did not feel I could go after her to make another apology.

Chapter 6. Another Freeze; Another Thaw

The shutters came down again; the return of the Ice Maiden. I went back eating in the kitchen again and Sari and I worked hard at avoiding each other.

My father returned and for a while peace seemed to reign between him and his wife. Meanwhile I had selected my new bed partner, a somewhat buxom girl called Nora. It took a couple of weekends with the ski boat and some spins into the country with the BMW before she joined me in bed. As a sex partner she proved somewhat raucous. She was one of those females who are capable of seemingly endless orgasms and each orgasm was an occasion for yells and screams that nearly brought the house down about our ears.

My father, who usually ignored my sexual activities, told me that Nora’s orgasmic cries could be heard all over the house, and if she didn’t quieten down I should need to seek another partner. Thereafter I managed to muffle some of the noise by placing my hand over her mouth as she climaxed.

The peace between father and Sari did not last for long. Soon there was bickering to be heard again, if not all over the house, certainly within earshot of my bedroom.

Then father was off again to yet another distant courtroom. The renewed squabbling between father and Sari had not this time resulted in a friendlier rapprochement between Sari and me. We remained distant and coldly polite.

Lisa and Josie had both decided to go on vacation for a couple of weeks, so instead of employing replacements for them, Sari to my amazement, had told father she would cope with the cooking and housework. From day one of her arrival in the house she had never struck me as the housework type.

I had been puzzled for a long time about what Sari did with her days. Earlier in her marriage, as I have already indicated, she tended to roam or sit around in a state of semi undress a great deal. She seemed to be revelling in not having to do anything. Later, and most markedly when the squabbles with father began, she would be gone from the house for several hours each day. I did wonder if, having found herself sexually unsatisfied with a man so much older than her, she had got herself a lover.

Having undertaken to look after the house and do the cooking, she still went out each day. I was tempted to ask her what she did when she left the house, but apart from the coldness between us, I was afraid I might get an answer I did not want to hear.

With only the two of us in the house and Sari doing the cooking we could hardly eat the evening meal separately, so we ate in the kitchen. This led to another minor unfreezing in our relationship. It was nothing dramatic; just an exchange of queries about each other’s day; how had it been? And so on.

This continued for about three days until Sari sprung one of her “out of the blue” questions on me again.

“David, do you think we could be friends?”

I had been on edge sharing our meals in the kitchen and this question really incensed me. I snapped at her really hard.

“Sari, since the day you bloody well entered this house you’ve spent most of the time treating me as if I didn’t exist. I don’t know why and perhaps I don’t care why, but I notice that every time you and father aren’t getting along well, I get a bit of your attention. I’m sick of being ignored or being used as a stand-in when you can’t get on with old man, and that is precisely the reason you want to be friendly with me now, as a stand-in.”

There was a long pause. I looked across the table at Sari. She was sitting stock still, rigid. To my shame I saw tears running down her cheeks. Like many people in that situation, made to feel guilty by the response their words or actions have evoked, I plunged in even deeper.

“For Christ’s sake don’t turn on the waterworks, it doesn’t impress me. You’ve been a solid lump of ice since the day you moved in here, so freeze up again.”

Her weeping up to that point had been silent, but now she broke down into racking sobs. I was angry with her and myself; angry with her because she had dragged such bitter words from me, and angry with myself for having lost control the way I had.

I was at a loss to know what to do and castigated myself for my inactivity. “A bloody fine doctor you’ll make,” I thought, “when you can’t handle someone crying.”

With that self-rebuke I rose and went to Sari. I put my hand on her shoulder and muttered, “Sorry.”

For a moment she said nothing and continued weeping. Then I felt her hand cover mine as it lay on her shoulder. She spoke through her sobs; “The trouble is you’re right.”

I had anticipated rejection and perhaps an angry verbal response; her agreement with my acid words startled me. I was also surprised by the realisation that this was the first voluntary physical contact we had ever had.

The touch of her hand on mine sent a quiver of pleasure through me and I was confused as to how to proceed. In the circumstance I left my hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to withdraw her hand. Instead she gently squeezed my hand, holding it as if it was rescuing her from some fate like drowning.

We must have remained like that for a couple of minutes, then she finally released my hand and I her shoulder. She stood and said again; “You are right.” She walked slowly towards the kitchen door. There she stopped and turned, fixing those green eyes of her on me, and this time not looking past me or through me, but into me.

“One day,” she murmured, “you might understand.”

Chapter 7. I Learn Something

She left the room. I wanted to go after her; to ask her forgiveness and to offer the friendship she had asked for. Instead I went into the library and poured myself a drink.

“One day you might understand,” she had said. Understand what? Some dark secret? Some past she kept hidden within? What? If my father had been more communicative I might have learned something of Sari’s background, but the gulf that had grown up between us had precluded that sort of intimacy.

My father having few friends, only people he used, meant that Sari had gained few if any friends through being married to him. In any case Sari’s own aloofness would have put many people off.

She did, however, have a few girl friends who I gathered she had met while engaging in some university extension course. Occasionally they visited her and once in a while she would go out with two or three of them.

I had not paid particular attention to these friends but I had noted there were no males among them. I had put this down to her not wanting father to get the wrong idea, but in passing I had noted that a couple of these friends were married, but there husbands never came with them to visit.

As if the thought gives rise to the event, a couple of days after that critical evening with Sari, one of her friends called on the off chance Sari might be home.

“Just passing,” she said, “and thought I’d drop in.”

As it happened Sari was not at home so I asked her to come in since she’d been kind enough to call. Her name was Adrienne and under cover of being hospitable I thought I might feel out what she knew about Sari. She gave me a first class opportunity. “Excuse my being so nosy, but I have wondered how you and Sari get along. I mean, it must be odd having a stepmother near enough your own age.”

She gave a giggle and went on, “Don’t mean to be prying but one can’t help being curious.”

I decided to exploit Adrienne’s “prying” for my own ends.

“That’s all right” I said, pouring her stiff drink, “it’s natural that people should be interested. As a matter of fact, there’s not a great deal of communication between Sari and me. I suppose we manage to live in the same house without conflict, but Sari is rather remote where I’m concerned.”

“Ah, yes,” said Adrienne in a speculative sort of voice. “Then nothing’s changed.”

“How do you mean?” I queried.

“Well she still sort of hides away from people, especially men.”

I noted she had already got through her drink so I poured her another on the grounds that a little alcohol can often elicit a lot of information.

“Yes,” I said, “she is remote with nearly everyone except people like you and her other old friends.”

“She has to trust, you see. Took us a long time to get though to her, poor thing, but she’s really lovely when you do get to know her. I mean, she’s incredibly lovely on the outside everybody can see that, but she’s sort of beautiful on the inside as well, if you see what I mean. Just look at all the work she does among her own people, the refugees I mean; all voluntary as you will know.”

“So that’s where she does to when she goes out,” I thought. Then pretending for Adrienne’s benefit to know about this refugee work I simply said, “Yes.”

“Of course, she went though hell herself before she got out of the country. No wonder she fends people off with her cold manner. You and your father are very privileged to be privy to her life; there’s only a few of us who are.”

I was bursting to know what it was father and I was supposed to be “privy” to, but I was in no position to ask.

Adrienne rose and said, “Well must get on, let Sari know I dropped by will you?”

“I’ll do that,” I replied.

Adrienne departed not quite steady on her feet. The drinks had been rather strong.

I was left with some knowledge about Sari, but with the tantalizing question; what was this “hell” she had gone through?

Chapter 8. My Sorrow and an Invitation

When Sari came home that afternoon I told her about Adrienne’s visit, then asked her if she would come into the lounge as I wanted to talk to her.

She looked at me somewhat austerely but never the less followed me into the lounge and sat.

We had hardly exchanged a word since her weeping session so I began by reiterating my apology.

“Sari, I want to say how sorry I am for the way I spoke to you the other evening. Especially since you asked me for friendship and all I did was to reject you. If you can forgive me, I’d like us to start again.”

“I think I’ve forgiven you already,” she replied. “I understand how you must feel. Perhaps it is you who should forgive me.”

“For what?”

“For the way most of the time I’ve been so distant towards you.”

“But Sari, you’re like it with most people.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry for that too.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry Sari, but I do want to understand why. You said that one day I might understand, but how can I understand if you don’t tell me?”

“I can’t tell you.

“Why not, don’t you trust me with whatever your secret is?”

“I would like to, David, but I wonder if you would want to be my friend if I did tell you.”

“Surely it can’t be that bad? Does father know?”

“Some of it.”

She had been looking at me with sad eyes, but suddenly their look sharpened. “Has Adrienne been talking to you?”

“Well, yes, I invited her in for a drink.”

“And you questioned her about me?”

“Yes, but only because I want to know you better, and she didn’t give me any details, I promise.”

“She had no right to talk about me to you at all.”

“It doesn’t look as if we can be friends, does it. A friend is someone you trust enough to let them see something of you, who and what you are. I’m sure you’ve heard enough about me from father and rest of the family, but I know hardly anything about you.”

Another one of Sari’s bolt from the blue questions sent me reeling again.

“David, would come with me to see a film tomorrow night?”

She had skittered right away from the subject we had been discussing leaving me bewildered. I felt my irritability starting to rise up within, but pushed it down. She was making an opening, so I would walk through it.

“All right,” I said. “We go to see a film tomorrow night.”

“Lovely David; your father and I hardly ever go out like that. It’s always legal business with him when we do go out.” She looked at me and smiled almost shyly.

“I hope you don’t mind being his substitute?”

I laughed, “All right Sari, I shall be honoured to substitute for the old man.”

She joined in my laughter and said, “really, I shall enjoy being with you for your own sake. Now I must go and prepare dinner.”

She rose and came to me, and to my utter amazement, kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you David,” she said, and departed for the kitchen.

That brief brush of her lips across my cheek, her momentary closeness, her female fragrance had me hardening up. “My God,” I thought, “if such a mild demonstration of affection can have this effect on me then what if…. Careful David….”

Sari had taken charge and inserted the thin end of the wedge of friendship. I would wait and see how things developed.

Chapter 9. I take the Initiative

The visit to the cinema was unexceptional in that we went, saw a film, and came home. We talked about the film we had seen, decided it was not too bad, and that was it; “Where to from here?” I thought.

Sari having taken the first step towards a new relationship between us, I decided the initiative was now mine. With the heavy load of my studies my free time was limited and although I had not yet selected a new sex partner, the pressure to do so was growing. Most girls are not content with just being bedded; they want to be taken out and entertained so any new partner would also encroach on my time.

I had noted that Sari was very fond of music. I had heard her playing CD’s and got to know her taste. In addition I had heard her playing the grand piano we had, and doing so with considerable ability. Actually the piano had stood unused for years, my father considering it just one more thing that people of our wealth should have.

Clearly Sari liked classical music. Most of it was not particularly to my taste, but I decided that a concert would be the thing to take her too. This proved convenient since our State Orchestra gave regular Sunday afternoon concerts, and that tended to be the time that I rested from my labours.

The only problem was, father was due home and I wondered how he would feel about me taking his wife to a concert. Before asking Sari if she would like to go with me to the concert I decided to approach father on the subject.

I waited until he was alone in the library and with some trepidation made my move.

“Father.”

He looked up from some papers he was studying. “Yes?”

“I’m going to one of the Sunday afternoon concerts, and wondered if Sari would like to go with me.”

“Well ask her.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why should I? Make a change for you two to get together.” In the now more than two years Sari had been in the house, such was the contact between my father and I, that I didn’t think he’d even noticed the distance between Sari and me; apparently he had.

He went on, “Since when have you been interested in going to classical concerts?”

“Oh, just thought I’d give it a try,” I hedged.

“Well, you can take her where you like, keep her amused.”

That was my dismissal. He looked down at his papers again and I left him to his legal world.

I went in search of Sari and found her in the sun room also reading some papers of her own. As she looked up lowering the papers I caught a glimpse of the heading. It read, “Refugee Association.”