Rock and Roll Angel

Honolulu: Present day

On the outer edge of Honolulu, in a suburb called Kaimuki, nestled at the base of the Diamond head Crater, on the island of Oahu, Ethan Grant sat on a wicker sofa in the sun room of his cousin Ashley's home. In his right hand, he spun an external drive from finger to finger. On the drive was a video recording a weekend of unbridled passion from five years ago.

Has it really been five years? He thought as he opened his laptop and popped the drive into the allotted port and clicked on the required icons. The laptop made a tiny contented grunt as it downloaded the information.

Is this what our past has become, he thought as he waited for the laptop to do its thing, nothing but stored information on our devises and less in our heads?

He clicked on the media player, steered the little arrow to play, clicked on that and then moved the arrow to the fast forward button to advance to the end of the recording to get passed the party to the end.

That was no party bro ... it was a bacchanal ... an orgy ... and the best sex of your life.

The screen was blank but a woman's laugh sent a shiver up his spine and he hit pause instead of fast forward. The still cute Japanese face of Joy Maeda filled the screen. His heart ached at the sight of her. Back then, all those years ago, he had had no idea how complicated his life would become and Joy's face made him ache for that simpler time. Longing to be there again, he clicked on play and allowed the little home movie to roll from the start.

"Are we filming?" Joy Maeda asked on the laptop screen.

It surprised him how sharp and clear the film was. In his head, the event had become grainy and distant and for some stupid reason he had expected everything to have faded or degraded or something.

"Ready for your close up?" Sarah asked, her voice clear and sharp. Sarah, his best friend (and still was to this day) had done the filming that night.

The camera zoomed out showing a naked Joy reclined on the bed on her side, her slim, petite gymnast's figure tight and perfect. The patch of hair between her legs drew Ethan's gaze like metal fillings to a magnate. Joy's nakedness made him shift the laptop to make sure no one from outside the sun room could see what he was watching. It was a ridiculous worry, the windows to the sun room were tinted making it impossible to casually see in from the outside.

Joy giggled and said, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Say your line twerp," Ashley's voice came a bit faint because of her distance from the camera.

A lump formed in Ethan's throat at the sound of his cousin's voice from five years ago.

"Don't call me twerp," Joy said feigning anger. She cleared her throat, sat up cross legged, looked straight out of the laptop screen and said, "Welcome to the filthy, dirty facial cumshot." her eyes rolled to her right. "Do I have to make it sound so nasty?"

"Because it is so nasty you cheep sleazy tramp," Ashley said. "And I can't believe you talked me into this too."

"And we do this for a man's dirty misogynistic pleasure I might add," Sarah said.

The camera tracked over to Ethan from five years ago standing nearby. His hair longish, his face worry free and quite handsome, almost pretty. Envy with just a little bit of anger flushed through Ethan as he looked at his less burdened younger self. Under all the emotions was a touch of guilt.

You should feel guilty for the things you did with your cousin Ashley that night his long ignored Protestant side scolded. Ashley had no idea this recording still existed. The recording belonged to Joy. He wondered why she had kept it all theses years. Anyway, Cousin Ashley would flip if she knew it existed.

His science grounded brain jumped in and rationalized, We are so many times removed that we could hardly be considered related. And it still amazed him that he was related in anyway to Ashley. She was half Japanese and a bunch of other stuff but the other stuff was dominated by her Asian genes. She could easily pass for pure Japanese he thought.

On the laptop, the camera dropped down to Ethan's erect penis.

"Meet the true star of this pornographic fantasy, the male dick," Sarah said.

"Can we keep the feminist, lesbian commentary to a minimum please," Ethan groused from on the laptop.

The camera panned to Ashley standing nearby, shockingly naked ... and beautiful.

"Man, Ashley you're gorgeous," Sarah's said seeming to reflect the current Ethan's very thoughts. The camera zoomed in on Ashley's firm C-cups and stayed there.

"Up here please?" Ashley said on the laptop. The camera zoomed back to her face but her young perky boobs still drew all of Ethan's attention. Then suddenly, the camera angel went wild and blurry.

The next shot on the laptop was of a naked Sarah Logan, bold, blonde, beautiful and looking quiet put out. "Give me the camera you little freak!"

"Say hello to Sarah the most beautiful lesbian on the planet," Joy the apparent camera thief said.

Sarah smiled graciously at the compliment then rushed the camera. The next shot showed Joy flung to the bed landing on her cute little butt where strong six-foot tall Sarah had tossed her.

"Places everybody. The battery's running down," Sarah announced. "If we're gonna do this dirty deed, it has to be now."

The Camera followed Ashley as she took her place on her knees before Ethan's erection. Joy knelt next to her. Ashley firmly gripped the younger Ethan's shaft in both her hands. The camera zoomed in on Joy's upturned face, her expression somewhere between a frown and a smile.

Ethan clicked pause and the scene on the laptop froze on Joy's dubious expression. Although sun room was well air conditioned, he wiped at his damp forehead with the back of his hand. His chest thumped violently as his heart raced a million miles an hour. He took the time to take in several deep breaths to calm himself. As his heart slowed, his mind raced back five years and a couple of days before the making of the film.

Chapter one

Beer Nuts and Demon's Flesh

"You guys did a gig at Demon's without me?" Ethan asked Sarah as he slipped in opposite her in a booth in their favorite bar.

"Didn't take long for the news to reach you," Sarah said as she grabbed a fist full of beer nuts. "So? Who told?"

"Dolly did. She picked me up at the airport tonight."

"How was the class trip to the Galapagos?"

"Fine," he said, "following in footsteps of Darwin was on my bucket list." Then he quickly waved aside the pleasantries and got to the point, "Is it true you performed topless at Demon's?"

"We all did ... well Kieth didn't. Nobody wanted to see his pale flabby chest."

Ethan's jaw dropped open.

"It was an emergency—"

"An emergency? Really? What kind of an emergency would require you to go topless in a biker bar?" he asked sceptically.

"If you shut your fukin' yap I'll tell you," Sarah said. She ate more beer nuts before continuing. He rolled his eyes as she leisurely chewed. After a long draw of beer she said, "Demon's is a tough place and two songs in, wouldn't you know it, a fight breaks out." She stopped to take a swallow of beer and then continued, "And I'm not talking about some drunk guy punching another drunk guy. I'm talking about full on, someone is gonna fuckin' die kind of fight. Me and the band were trapped on the small stage against the back wall. Some guy pulled a gun out then the bartender pulled out a shotgun. If any of those guns went off the band was fucked. Desperate, I grabbed the mike and screamed at Ashley HARD TO HANDLE! hoping that the Black Crows could save our butts.

"Actually it was Otis Redding who first did the song in sixty eight," Ethan corrected.

"Whatever," Sarah said. "Anyway, it didn't working, the fight raged on and we were seconds away from eating lead shot. In a panic I screamed into the mike the chicks in the band are getting naked! It fucking worked! It was like somebody hit the pause button on a movie, everything froze." She reached for another hand full of nuts but Ethan snatched the bowl away from her.

"No more nuts! Tell me!"

She gave him a dirty look but continued with the story.

"We had their attention and I could tell that if I didn't show some skin a bigger riot would ensue. As we worked our way through Hard to Handle, I removed my denim vest and my Stones t-shirt. Thankfully I was wearing my favorite black-satin, Victoria's Secret pushup. By the end of the song I was topless. The fight had ended but I could tell that it was a skinny truce and anything could set the place off again so I made sure that all the girls showed some titty. By the end of Rod Stewart's, Maggie May," Dolly was topless."

Sarah reached for the bowl of nuts; this time he didn't stop her. She ate more nuts and then gulped down the rest of her beer. She signaled to the waitress for another. Ethan ordered one too.

"Dolly has a really nice rack," Sarah said.

Ethan agreed wholeheartedly for Dolly was shapely in that sweet German barmaid kind of way. He looked at Sarah, or more accurately, at her chest. You have a nice pair too he thought but knew better than to voice such an observation to his militant lesbian best friend.

"Ashley topless too," He asked said.

Sarah nodded.

"Man," he whispered. What lousy luck. His eyes lingered on his best friend's chest and his imagination kicked into high gear. That stage gets hot under the lights at Demon's and all those tits must have been shiny with sweat. He imagined six set of nipples at stiff attention.

"Eyes up sperm sack," Sarah warned him.

"Ashley too huh?" Ethan said trying to sound casual and not that interested in his cousin's naked flesh.

"In all her B-cup glory," Sarah said, "That cousin of yours is a trooper. We must have cleared eight hundred in tips that night and everyone kept buying us beers."

"I bet," he said only half listening. Ashley topless ... wow.

"You having dirty thoughts about your cousin again?" Sarah asked giving him the disapproving eye. The beers arrived and Ethan took a long draw from his.

He put down his glass and said, "There is nothing wrong with my attraction for Ashley."

"She's your cousin you sick incestuous fuck," Sarah said as she tucked into more beer nuts.

"Just barely by marriage. Her dad's my dad's third cousin something or other. Besides, royalty in Europe married cousins all the time."

Sarah gave a dismissive sniff. "Yeah, look how well European history turned out."

"You've got a thing for Ashley too Ms. Lesbian lawyer."

"I'm not related to her. My attraction for Ashley is healthy and normal. You on the other hand should be driven from civilized society and forced to live on the fringe eating only tree bark, nuts and canned tuna."

Ethan frowned. "Canned tuna?"

"I hate canned tuna."

"It's not like I've done anything scandalous with Ashley," Ethan went on, still frowning at the tuna thing.

"Oh my God. Can you see the pyramids on your side of de-Nile? The two of you kissed right in front of me behind the bowling alley."

"We were just fifteen at the time and drunk on beer that you provided. We were so blitzed that night neither of us remembered a thing."

"Okay, age eighteen, lake Oliver, skinny dipping."

"That was your idea remember? And it was pitch black. You couldn't tell an ass from a rock," Ethan said with honest regret about the conditions of that evening. It would have been quite the coup to see both his beautiful best friend and cousin naked. And oh how he wished he was at Demon's the night of riot. He would have taken a bullet from a crazed biker.

"Making out at the Led Zeppelin movie! Spring break, first year of college." Sarah said pointing an accusing finger at Ethan's face.

Ethan stared at her in incredulity. "That was you and Ashley."

"Oh yeah—" Sarah's eyes glazed over. "The chick's a great kisser."

"You got her high on pot and she's still traumatized by that evening."

"She liked every moment," Sarah said with her crooked tomboy smile.

"You're such a guy." Ethan said.

Sarah laughed. "You're just jealous that I can remember my kiss with Ash and you can't."

Chapter Two

Ashley on My Mind

Ethan drank his beer and brooded as he thought of his feelings for his cousin Ashley—third cousin by marriage he added to reassure himself that he wasn't a perv ... but was he?

He thought back to when he had first met Ashley at a big family reunion in Big Timber, Montana of all places. Ethan had just starting high school and was miserable for being dragged to the reunion because he had a budding relationship to maintain back home. It turned out that Ashley was of the same mind, so in their shared misery, they bonded.

Ashley's parents were both in the Navy and stationed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii where they met and then married. From the first moment he saw his cousin, Ethan thought her the most exotic person he had ever met. Ashley and her mom, with their Asian features, slim figures and dark hair, stuck out in the sea of towheaded, stocky Swedes, Norwegians and Germans at the reunion. At that time in his life, Ethan could count on one hand the number of Asian people he had met. To his surprise, at the end of the reunion, Ashley shyly confessed to him that he was the most exotic person she had ever met. Tall blonds were a rarity for her, and to his delight she had compared him to Brad Pitt.

Ethan's dad and his distant cousin Charlie who was married to Ashley's mom, reconnected at the reunion and the families met every summer from that day forth.

Sarah's voice broke his reminiscence.

"This is the last summer with her isn't it?"

Ethan nodded. Ashley graduated from Ohio State this spring and would be going to Honolulu University to get her graduate degree in biology. Plus, she was getting married to some guy on Maui.

"Yeah, her last summer of freedom," Ethan said. And her last summer with me he thought, but didn't voice that part. Sarah reached over from her side of the booth and squeezed his hand. Ethan looked into her face free of makeup yet still very pretty.

Sarah said, "I'm gonna miss your crazy Japanese cousin too. Summers just ain't gonna be the same without her here in Byle, Ohio."

Ethan's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see the incoming number. "Speak of the devil," he said and answered the call with a big goofy grin. "Hey Ash."

"Hey haole boy," Ashley said back.

"You're the only person allowed to call me 'whitey', regardless of the language."

"How many times do I have to tell you, it's a term of endearment?"

"Uh huh."

"Ask her if she wants to see a movie with me?" Sarah said.

Ashley laughed. "I see you're with Sarah. Is she ever going to let me forget that night?"

"Probably not," Ethan said. "Sarah has the memory of water."

Ashley and Ethan laughed.

"What is that suppose to mean you science geek?" Sarah asked.

"Water always retains trace elements of whatever it comes into contact with," Ethan replied. "In other words, water never forgets."

"And apparently neither do lesbians with Asian girl fetishes," Ashley said in Ethan's ear making him laugh some more.

"Still on schedule for Friday?" he asked.

"I'm sorry but my plans have changed," Ashley said.

Ethan's heart sank.

Ashley laughed. "I'm here now and just pulling into your parent's driveway."

"Hey. Wow. I'm across town drinking beers with Sarah," Ethan said, excited that his cousin was here five days early but disappointed that he wasn't there to meet her.

"I'll let myself in with the key under the garden gnome that looks like Mick Jagger." She said. Then in a more serious tone asked, "Is the pool set to go? If not, I'm driving right to the airport. I'm not spending my last summer in Byle without a pool."

"Pool's all primed just for you."

"I want bikini shots," Sarah blurted loud so Ashley could hear.

Ashley laughed. "Tell the lesbian queen of Byle that if she wants bikini shots of me she has to get the band together one last time."

"Get the band together and then she'll do it," Ethan relayed to Sarah.

Sarah nodded, "Consider it done."

"She told me about Demons," He said to Ashley softly. Just saying it warmed his blood.

"Oh my God. I'm just glad it hasn't gone viral."

"Sorry I missed it."

"Teach you to go off to the Galapagos Islands on a college field trip to expand your mind and not hang around a biker bar in danger of getting shot and seeing naked titties," Sarah said.

"Ashley says you're a fucking perv," Ethan said to Sarah.

"Don't get me in trouble with Sarah," Ashley protested.

"Takes one to know one," Sarah said.

"You're such a punk," Ashley said in Ethan's ear. "See you at the house."

The call ended and Ethan put away his cell phone.

"Can you do that? Get the band together again?" Ethan asked.

"I've done harder things," Sarah said.

"I have shopping to do." He stood and dropped a twenty on the table to pay for his beers.

She grabbed the twenty, stood too and shoved the bill into Ethan's top pocket.

"My treat," she said and whipped out a credit card. "Get me those bikini shots."

"You're such a fuckin' guy," he told her retreating form. He couldn't help but admire her splendid curvy ass in her faded jeans as she walked away.

"Stop looking at my ass," Sarah said without turning around.

Ethan laughed and left the restaurant.

Chapter Three

Added Joy

Standing totally confused in the rice and bean aisle, Ethan reached for his cell and hit Ashley's number.

"Hey haole boy. Wazzup? Way you stay?" Ashley said lazily in Hawaiian pidgin. Ethan thought it fascinating how she could turn her accent off and on.

"In the bean and rice aisle. What kind of rice do you like again?" He knew she was super picky about her rice and didn't want to get the wrong thing.

"I doubt that you'll find the brads I like in Byle." she said. "Jasmine will do. If you come home with Uncle Ben's instant I will kick your lily white okole. Or better yet I'll get Sarah to do it."

He grabbed a five pound bag of jasmine rice and threw it in the cart.

"Be sure to get some soy sauce and sesame seed oil," she said.

"Right." He sped toward the condiment aisle.

"You won't find them in the condiment aisle," Ashley said as if she were there with him. "Go to foreign foods. You'll find them in the tiny oriental section. Any brand will do. And I can't believe that they still use the word oriental in this day and age."

"This is Byle, Ohio. Just be glad it doesn't say Gook, Chink or slant-eyed bastards."

She laughed. He loved making her laugh.

As he tossed items into his cart, he asked her, "What you doin'?"

"What else? Sitting in your parents new jacuzzi, drinking free beer from your parent's fridge and reading a book on my Kindle Fire. I'm wearing a swimsuit that Sarah would love because it gets indecently translucent when wet."

I bet I would love it as much as Sarah, he thought and hoped that it was that one piece light blue thing she wore last year. He remembered how he kept stealing looks at her dark nipples as she lay sunning.

"You still there?"

"Um, yeah," Ethan said. "The big guestroom across from my parents room is yours,"

He headed to the beer aisle. Ethan's parent's were off to Hawaii for a visit with Ashley's family. Ashley and Ethan were to join them in mid July—two week from now.

"No, I want the tiny guestroom downstairs," she insisted. "I don't plan on being more than a few feet from the pool and jacuzzi."

"Have it your way." He said.

He hung up and finished the shopping cheerful as a pig in mud.

He stopped off at his apartment near the local agriculture college that he attended to grab some overnight stuff. He made sure to pack his digital camera and extra batteries. He decided not to pack his laptop because the power plug was glitching out. If he needed a computer there was his parents PC.