***** The actual names of the persons described below have been changed to protect the innocent.*****

 

Retelling this story in logical words is going to be a bit difficult since nothing about what happened could be defined as logical. Yet, once it is bared to hopefully wise and understanding individuals, a tremendous burden will have been lifted.

This is a bizarre account of a fantasy gone terribly awry. That is my description but, of course, you are free to determine what you will. I have kept it to myself for 16 years. Until now, the only person on Earth who knows the truth about what actually occurred is my lifelong friend, Christine Malia. No other entity, not the police and prosecutors, not the courts, and not even my own family have ever been made a complete party to what is revealed here. Unless my old cat, Hunter, recalls the evenings I spent talking to him alone in an effort to comfort myself with his company.

But, it's time. Maybe after this I'll be able to forget the images. You may be inclined to think that certain passages exhibit bitterness, but honestly, that emotion no longer lingers.

This compact parable has been written in the first person. It's really the only style to properly correspond the details since I was the sole witness who discovered the bodies of my sisters.

My name is Cynthia Kinikia. I was born in December, 1955 on the island of Oahu in the Territory of Hawaii. You most likely have never been made aware of these incidents via the media. Hawaii greatly depends on tourism for its very survival. Law enforcement, the governor, and the newspapers have a pact to keep the gruesome details of violent events limited to rumor, gossip, word of mouth, or whatever leaks out of the police department. In short, no wire services were allowed. The powers that be like to spend our tax dollars on lavish magazine ads luring prospective vacationers.

This is Shangri La folks, the seven jewels of the South Pacific. We have so many tropical flower gardens, coconut trees, banana palms, and fragrant plumeria bushes that you'll never want to return to your freeways and washboards and streets teeming with violent punks. Why you can even swim at any beach with live sea turtles, they surface without intimidation and practically kiss you. And ah, the people. Only sweet, little Leilanis and friendly local boys here. Come, spend your money. No bones through our noses and no crime here.

My mother was a Portuguese Caucasian and my father was a dark-skinned Brazilian immigrant. Prior to our tiny island paradise attaining statehood in 1959, there were only sporadic laws and few morals respecting family values. Both of my parents had the infamous notoriety of being threefold adulterers. They even admitted the affairs to each other but nevertheless stayed together, I suppose for the welfare of our family due to its sheer size.

I was conceived as the third eldest of nine children. I am white. The other siblings characterized in this story were my younger sisters, April and Susie, and my brothers, Tommy and Puhi. All offspring exhibited skin traits and habits common to foreign nationalities. I won't bore you explaining why, as I'm fairly certain you can figure it out without my help.

April was a mixed breed. She could almost pass for Puerto Rican except that she spoke a concise and intelligent English. Susie was olive-skinned. She was less fortunate when it came to inherited or gifted brains as her vocabulary was limited to the local "pidgen English". Tough to understand, but you get used to it. The boys were brown-skinned like my Dad and to this day claim to be of true Hawaiian ancestry, which is wrong but its not worth an argument.

It remains a mystery who their real fathers were, or mine. This mixing and matching could also be said for the other four brothers and sisters. What a genetic mess. But in those days in the faraway, crystal clear Pacific, no one seemed to care.

The first sexual encounter fountained with another teenager when I was seventeen, albeit without my achieving orgasm. The male counterpart was most obviously relieved, his squeals of delight still ring in my ears.

Naturally, as a female, I felt guilty for my own inability to copulate and reap the benefits of its ultimate purpose. I passed it off as not really knowing what to do although I knew exactly what I was doing.

There were several subsequent one-nighters, all without the success of satisfaction. I guess you could have called me "loose" but, as I explained, it was the way of life at the time. Dates number two and three just laid there like limp dishrags and expected me to do all the work. I was starting to doubt not only my appeal but the entire point of this commended and marvelous burlesque.

At nineteen I married a guy, my final high school sweetheart. This is an often told and trite conclusion, but that fiasco ended in twelve short months. The reason was simple, no sexual compatibility.

Before the divorce was file-stamped, and realizing a failed marriage, a childhood screwed up by who knows who's hormones, and no discernable way of achieving a genuine sexual experience, I decided on suicide.

I fashioned a half-ass noose cut from a clothesline and attached it to the fixture of a ceiling fan in my bedroom. That may sound a tad rash, but if anyone has ever been as despondent as I was, you may remember the urge. And besides, all us kids had ceiling fans in our bedrooms.

There is still no interpretation as to what happened next. Something, a revelation perhaps, told me to know the sensation of choking before I put my neck into that lethal noose. I wrapped a nylon stocking around my throat and pulled it ever so gingerly. When I felt the constriction begin on the veins and arteries, I had my first orgasm. The hanging instrument was rapidly disassembled and I downed an entire bottle of Night Train while acting silly and leaping around the house with unrestricted joy.

I confided what had transpired to my less than mature husband who promptly went screaming into the streets. We were divorced one month later. It was the type of marriage termination where neither party had to reveal any cause for the dissolution. You know, "the marriage is irretrievably broken", period. I never heard from him again after he signed the decree and vanished into the shadows of Diamond Head.

The next two years were spent pondering, meditating, and masturbating with various ligatures and wondering if I was truly a freak of my own genetics. The only confound way I could climax was by mildly strangling myself. It was an embarrassing admission to bear and I optioned to keep it in silence. Silence may be golden but it sure can grate on your nerves in a lonely situation without a partner.

Then I met Leonard Nakamura. He was a discotechque pick-up. On our first formal date we went to his rented apartment after an impressive and expensive dinner. Expensive or not, I demanded a full discussion of values before we even had one drink alone together. No more disappointments for Cynthia girl.

Leonard was eight years older than me, a combination of Filipino and Japanese descent. He claimed to be a self-supporting artist and showed me some photographs of his work. Pretty impressive sculptures I must admit. In between his visions to create art, he worked part-time at a surfing shop on Waimea Bay. He also described his interest in semi-professional boxing in which he had been a participant. I could see he had strong hands. He was a good conversationalist and spoke intelligently. Better sense should have prevailed after living here my whole life and knowing full well that the attitude of Philippine males who migrate to these islands is one of utter domination. But he was such a nice guy.

When the small talk moved toward sexual inclinations, I was elated to hear that Leonard enjoyed the same "strange" pleasures which I relished. Although hesitant, I suppose my desperation for true sexual satisfaction overshadowed my good discrimination and I permitted him to ferry me to his favored boudoir. He even carried me in there. Charming, yes?

Leonard had come semi-formally dressed for the dinner. Nice slacks, white shirt and a necktie. After the initial obligatory foreplay we agreed that he would wrap the tie around my neck and ever so gently pretend to strangle me. When the compression reached that "magic" spot I sensed an orgasm as never before.

Finally. A man who was sensitive to my sexual needs and who enjoyed it himself. "Incredible, but true," were my thoughts. It was going to be happily ever after.

Leonard and I were wed on my 23rd birthday. We moved into a house his deceased father, Jackson, had built by hand. Leonard had become recipient of the title by inheritance.

Three years elapsed at breakneck speed. The marriage had been subjected to the usual domestic problems, mostly bickering about money, but so far, sex had not been a stumbling block. My word, I had tasted nearly every imaginable type of asphyx fantasy with this man, who had always obeyed my guidelines. Admitted, I cannot be held totally without fault for being the prod of a couple of fights. Maybe it was unconscious jealously, but Leonard had what I thought was an inordinate dependency on his 70-something year old mother. To question him about this topic was like pitching a match in a bucket of coal oil. So, I finally relented and put my gripes in brain storage.

Then one night we argued about something alien to our sacrament thus far. Leonard said he suspected me of infidelity. To this day the foundation of his accusation remains an unsolved enigma but in order to prevent an "I said, you said" inane squabble, I suggested we make love. I suppose I presumed this would quell his illusory fears that I had been lascivious.

For this night I selected my silk kimono sash as the pseudo "weapon". It was soft textured material and felt extremely comfortable around my neck. As the session progressed, Leonard became overly aggressive in his application of the ligature. Although I achieved orgasm, I was forced to eventually punch him on the side of the face and push his body off of me because he was continuing to tighten the loop. I dismissed his behavior to drinking too much but learned later it went much deeper.

I began to seriously worry as things went from bad to worse over the next few months. During many of our romps, Leonard would frequently choke me well beyond the required limits. He hastened to apologize after each event. Make of that what you will.

On one delightful, 77 degree night in October, Leonard severely overstepped those limits. The silk stocking we were using became so tight around my throat that my tongue was forced out of my mouth and my face turned blue. As I was unrestrained, I used what remaining flexibility I had left to kick him in the right spot in order to force a release of his grip. My thoughts as I gasped for breath were, "Cynthia, you just kicked your own loving husband in the balls! You can probably kiss this marriage good-bye."

Well, the marriage did not end. I guess he was never kicked in the testicles before when he was boxing because he became very passive after that phenomenon. The relationship dragged along with Leonard displaying a lot of crying, promising to return to his old ways, and spending his uninspired idle days at his mother's house while I worked. On July 5th, 1982, Leonard announced he wanted to try something new. Our sex frolics until then had all been conventional. Woman face up, man face down.

He suggested we do a trial run on his novel idea and I should turn over on my stomach. He would enter from behind. This didn't sound like a bad idea since he had been behaving himself for a rare number of months. The obligatory ligature for that session was to be one of my silk scarves. He also said he would like to tie my wrists with one of the other scarves. I'm sure you're thinking, "What a gullible broad," but when you're in love, you make some quirky, out-of-character elections. I consented to the bondage and proceeded to see if this unfamiliar method would heighten the erotica. Leonard was given directions to wrap the scarf around my neck and just cross the ends until my veins and arteries could feel the pressure. That would do it, instant satisfaction guaranteed.

It didn't take long to realize that this was not to be a sexual encounter at all, particularly with me tied and helpless. Before I could speak Leonard had pulled the scarf so tight that all I could do was gurgle. "Oh, my God, this time he's really going to kill me!" raced through whatever part of my gray matter was still receiving blood.

He kept on until my face again turned blue, then he grabbed my throat with both powerful hands and virtually squeezed out my tongue until it had reached its maximum distance. Then, inexplicably, he relaxed his grip. At that point I was so wounded all I could do was gulp in air. But, as if he had blue-printed this so well, he tightened the garrote again.

To this day I do not know how I survived that second burst of his energy. He kept the pressure on for at least 60 straight seconds. My eyes began to throb and involuntarily crossed at the top of my nose, and I could tell my complexion was likening to burnt cork. There was an involuntary loss of control of my tongue which limply dangled from my open mouth.

With my brain starting to explode, I barely was able to make out his next words. Some stale statement like, "Had enough bitch?" I really cannot remember.

Suddenly, he let loose of the scarf and dismounted. Then he cut the other scarf binding my wrists. Miraculously I still had enough life in my lungs, and was able, after an hour in the bathroom regurgitating flem, to revert back to some sort of semblance of a human being.

When I came out of the toilet Leonard was lounging in the living room watching an ancient John Wayne movie and drinking a beer. As if nothing had happened! I went to the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife and then headed for the phone to call one of my older brothers. As soon as Leonard saw this, he made a quick exit out the front door and drove off. My brother Puhi came over to the house for the rest of the night in case Leonard returned.

It was not a prerequisite that I obtain the opinion of a professional psychologist or psychiatrist to convince me that Leonard had flipped out. Just how far into the ozone he had actually flown came out with his future actions. I found out many months later after the police searched his mother's home, that although unbeknownst to the old lady, they found several raw bags of Ice and various pipes and used syringes.

The day after the near-lethal attack, I was granted and served a restraining order on my husband at the mother's house where he was hiding out. We were divorced 45 days later without contestation. He signed all of the documents under a stipulated condition I didn't bring up any of his antics or press criminal charges. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Any sane court in the United States would have divorced me regardless of signing any agreement.

Unfortunately for Leonard, both of my older brothers have strong convictions of family protection for their sisters. I believe that vengeance should be left to the Lord but Puhi and Tommy felt it was their personal duty to teach Leonard a lesson. To be expected as they knew we all were a link of the same screwed up, innate family.

Puhi lived on a parcel of ranch land leased from one of the missionary families. He raised cows and goats. Big goats. One rainy night, he and Tommy encountered Leonard drunk and staggering along the side of a road. They feigned no animosity and offered him a ride. Once in Puhi's truck, Leonard was whisked away up the isolated road to the ranch.

After reading Leonard his rights "Hawaiian style", my "braddahs" staked him to a tree and stripped off his shorts. Then the goats were turned loose to nibble, lick, and gnaw on whatever was their pleasure.

Leonard wasn't castrated but suffered inflamed bruises and poignant soreness for a good many days. Cruel, but I knew nothing about this circumstance until after it was history.

I'm sure Leonard thought I was behind this abduction, but he did not pursue the matter in court, which he rightfully could have done. Instead, he chose a different method.

There was mercifully no contact with my ex-husband for the next two months. Understandable as the scared rabbit would have been in violation of the restraint order and one phone call would have him jailed, at least for a weekend.

You know, with a family this big and considering all of the get-togethers usually shared by everyone, it was hard for a sister-in-law to turn down the pleas of a pathetic, spurned ex-marriage partner of one of her own. Finding an audience to seek pity was easily accessible, and Leonard knew it.

One morning Leonard's mama, whom I had always received with cordiality, telephoned with a message. Leonard had asked her to call and relate that he had decided to leave the islands. She specified no date for this eagerly awaited exile. The mother further reported that he had left a going away present for me at my sister April's house. Without taking time to express my fears to "mom" Nakamura, I peeled out of the driveway.

April was four years my younger. She was now 24, unmarried and lived alone in a small beachfront cottage with the sand drifting to the edge of her back door. No one in her friendly vicinity felt the need to lock their screen doors. Robbery and other crimes were essentially non-existent in that district.

April's most cherished attire was her pink bikini, a convenience as she frequently ventured outside to pick up shells or simply grab a little color from the sun's reflection off the Pacific.

Baby sister's Volkswagen bug was in the carport. I blew my Jeep horn twice, our traditional alert that a family member had arrived to visit. The respite was momentary. When April did not appear, I sprinted into the house.

The front door led into the neat, undisturbed kitchen which was the routine appearance. The hallway snaked to the living area and that is where I found my sister.

A rattan chair had been purposely positioned to the center of the room facing the ocean. April had been handcuffed from behind, her wrists locked together through the slats of the chair. She was slumped in the seat with the bikini bottom pulled down around her unbound ankles. The bra portion had been left intact over her breasts. April had fairly short hair trimmed to shoulder length and it was plain that something was wrapped around her neck.

 

 

I was later tutored by a psychologist that instantaneous shock has a way of melting panic. Perhaps that's why after I walked around in front of the chair I just sat down on the floor and began to sob instead of immediately calling someone. I knew my sister was dead.

A cut shock of three foot household lamp cord had been furiously tied around her throat and knotted in the front. The cord had been pulled with such force that I couldn't see the knot under the folds of skin. Her complexion from the cord on up was a sickening deep violet.

Her eyes were open and bulging from their sockets on visible stalks of tissue. There were small streams of dried blood running down her face from both nasal passages and from her left ear.

April's mouth was wide open and her tongue was gargoylishly bloated, protruding out to the root to a near impossible length below her chin. It was red, swollen, obscene.

Her fingers had been frozen into claws. Her toes were equally as stiff, wrenched into irregularly bent shapes. The blue veins on the tops of her hands and feet were nearly erupting through the epidermis. And her abdomen was prominently inflated, very similar to pregnancy. Forensics claimed the cause of this condition was due a build-up of trapped and unreleased internal gasses.

There was a large, brown spot of dried fluid on the floor directly below her partially parted legs. The severity of the strangulation had ruptured her bladder. All voluntary body authority had abruptly ceased.

What happened during the next minutes is still fuzzy. I do know when I revived from the stunned daze I went for the telephone in April's bedroom, trying to avoid looking at my sister's tortured and contorted face. There was a note next to phone which read "Cyn, you caused this. I know I'm right. You better check with Susie pronto. LN". I identified with the handwriting. My ex-husband had strangled my sister April dead, not for sex but for revenge against me.

I did not call the police as I indubitably should have, but in the alternative phoned my brother Tommy, who lived about ten miles from April's house, and asked him to make the call for me. I did not go into details as the panicked feeling was resuming and my concern shifted to Susie's well being. But after Tommy made contact, the police were fast to arrive. You know how it is, small town, no action. This was their biggest chance to see an absolute crime since the fire in a lone garbage can at the beach park four months ago.

The first three rookie officers would not let me depart until I made a statement. I guess they are trained to be assured a person has recouped some pretext of a normal composure before making any type of verbal commitment, much less letting them loose on the street. So I was ushered into an adjacent room by a female cop who patiently bided time while I tried to collect my thoughts. I did not show the police the note from Leonard. Had I done so I would have spared myself the horror to come, but something told me to wait.

The walls of April's house were paper thin as is gospel in Hawaii since we have no urgency for insulation. Every word that was being said in the room of death could be distinctly heard through the partition.

The other two young male officers were blatant and crass with their candid, fraternal talk.

One of these public servants offered, "Man, she looks like a squashed lizard!"

The other one queried, "I know she's dead but can't we at least do something so my stomach stops churning?"

"Like what?" his partner chirped.

"Like shove her tongue back in her mouth," came the advice. The lady cop could see this language was upsetting me so she left the room to remind these gentlemen I was still in the house.

I suppose they became sheepish because total silence prevailed. At least until their sergeant showed up. He certainly cared less about my fragile condition. After he'd had a good look at April he barked, "Shit, must've been a strong son-of-a-bitch. There's no neck left at all. Could've choked a horse. Pissed all over herself too."

Susie's house was five miles from April's place down the beach highway. I fled to my Jeep and rolled it. In this small town on a Sunday afternoon it was amazing I didn't get stopped for doing 70 in a 40 mile an hour zone.

Susie was only one year younger than me, a petite five foot five with jet black, shoulder-length hair. She had no enemies. She lived in a refurbished plantation coffee shack without electricity and managed with a gas powered generator. The hovel was up a rarely traveled road in a wooded area with no neighbors.

When I bolted inside without knocking it was obvious that Susie had been knitting on a Hawaiian quilt, her favorite hobby, while watching television, which was on and loudly blaring an episode of "Days of Our Lives". Crochet needles and a half-woven quilt were on the floor next to the couch. This time there was no note.

I found Susie in the bedroom sprawled face up across her featherbed mattress. She was completely nude and there was blood splattered everywhere. Susie had been sliced to pieces with a still positively unidentified instrument, most likely a fish fillet knife, Leonard's favorite pocket tool. The coroner's report stated there was no evidence that this was a sex murder, although I already knew that. They said the ripping was done post-death "to emphasize additional impact." I knew it was only additional revenge against me.

 

 

In order to immobilize her and prevent a struggle, the coward had strapped both wrists and ankles with shredded pieces of a sheet to the four corresponding bedposts. I guess he felt no need to gag her. At this remote site nothing except an owl could have detected a scream.

Susie had been viciously strangled with a man's necktie which I recognized as belonging to Leonard. The murder had been performed from behind as the concise knot was at the top of the nape of her neck underneath her hair justifying the great pressure which was applied directly over her larynx. It looked as though, after her limbs were secured, the bed was pushed away from the wall and Leonard went behind her, lifted her head and then girdled the throttling sling around her throat.

My sister's face was black. Her left eyeball was distended totally from its socket and was slack down to her nose. The right eye was white, the iris having turned upward under the lid. Her lips were broad apart and her revoltingly paunched tongue was jutting out four inches across the right side of her face. Forensics told me this suggested a left-handed killer. Why, I didn't ask at the time, but Leonard was left-handed.

The post-strangulation mutilation was repellent. Susie's nipples had been meticulously sliced off. At the wounds, two holes the size of quarters had exuded a flow of semi-dried blood in equal rivers straight down where they trailed off onto the bedding just above her hips.

A circular incision had been made around her navel. The actual meat of the bellybutton had been wholly eviscerated, as if carefully plucked out with some type of tweezers. A disgusting and crimson spigot of the inner core was still percolating squirting blood.

Susie's abdomen below the navel had been slit open to the bridge of her vagina. The trench must have penetrated below the bottom layer of skin because, although not to an advanced stage, the large intestine was beginning to seep from the opening.

No shock this time, only sickness and vomiting. So much heaving that I thought I was going to die myself. I called the police and told them it was a follow-up to Tommy's previous call. Then I went outside and continued to throw up for the next two hours.

I have chosen to not exhaust the readers patience with the miserable contents of the police reports. They really don't reveal any more than you've already been told. However, for reasons of providing my own impact, I have selected and edited portions of the preliminary autopsy reports issued to the immediate relatives. Most of my family members burned their copies years ago. Mine were placed in a safe deposit box. I thought I might need them some day.

Name: Vivien April Durrant

Age: Twenty-four (24)

Cause of Death: Acute ligature strangulation

Pathological determinations: The victim was in an upright position as lashed in some fashion to an item of furniture. A one-inch wide ligature composed of satin material was in place tightened around the throat. It must be noted that it is unusual to examine a victim where the constriction of the weapon has been so pronounced. The diameter of the throat as measured from the foremost bulge in the larynx to the rearmost spot of the spinal column was only 2½ inches. This precludes an assailant using either extraordinary strength or one possibly under an influence of a type of steroidal mixture. While a motive cannot be assumed by this office, I am at liberty to surmise. Therefore, my educational, experienced estimation is that the assailant was afflicted with a rage as there was no evidence of a sexual assault or theft.

The victim's optical organs exhibited severe trauma (which is common with this form of strangulation). The eyeballs were pushed forward and convex to an abnormal distance from the retinal base. The oral cavity was equally abused, the tongue having swelled to approximately twice its normal width and protruding from the mouth in a vertical direction to a distance of approximately five inches as measured from the opening of the mouth.

Name: Susan Patricia Lani'aloha

Age: Twenty-six (26)

Cause of Death: Acute ligature strangulation.

Mutilation present but not a contributive factor to expriation.

Pathological determinations: The victim was found prone in her bed face-up across the mattress. A necktie had been secured around the throat and was still in place when the victim was delivered. The weapon had been pulled very taut and my office had to utilize surgical tools in order to remove it. There was tremendous damage to the optical organs. The left eyeball had been forcibly extracted from its socket. The oral cavity was fully agape and full of mucous. The tongue had hardened and was protruding across the lips to the right side of the face at an unnatural length. The facial complexion was deeply darkened which suggests a prolonged application of the ligature, possibly six to ten minutes.

The torso had recognizably sustained a severe amount of mutilation. These wounds occurred after death and were not determined to be a factor as to the cause. The nipples of both mammary glands had been entirely sheared off with neat cuts, possibly inflicted with some type of blade akin to a straight razor. There was a similar circular cut three inches in diameter around the victim's navel. The navel itself had been fully extracted leaving only a tuft of interior tissue which was sticking out. A deep slice had been made to the lower abdomen extending from the torn umbilicus straight downward to the top of the vagina. Although it appeared no forcible entry was made into this wound, the internal viscera had begun to ooze.

Immediately after that wretched day I relocated to April's beach house, knowing that the sympathetic and angered neighbors would be looking out on my behalf.

Leonard was arrested by homicide detectives 34 hours after the discovery of Susie's body. He was -- where else? -- at his mother's house when they came calling, watching television and guzzling a cuba libre. Unbelievable!

When I heard this I knew he was setting himself up for some sort of psychiatric-oriented plea in order to escape a life sentence. I wasn't wrong.

The trial came on for judgment six months later. As I expected, his appointed public attorney put on a defense chocked-full of goodies like "Mr. Nakamura was a happy, sensible individual before he married the victims' sister. Her unrelenting clinging and possessiveness went unchecked during their lives together. Surely, it is clear that he was a victim himself who was driven to commit these heinous acts."

The jury didn't buy it. A ridiculous two week trial ensued peppered with insanity plea arguments. The verdict? Leonard was found guilty of two counts of second degree murder. Not the worst scenario but far from what he was seeking which was confinement in an institution until he was diagnosed to be of no further danger to others. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison with no parole possible for the first 25, and only then if he was a good boy.

Leonard survived nine months in the State of Hawaii Long Term Correctional Center on Oahu, which is hardly a state-of-the-art prison. It was disclosed that he became heavily involved with a heroin ring (as a customer, not a supplier), couldn't raise the money to pay for his habit and was knifed dead in a lavatory. His mother passed away one month later and I handled her funeral arrangements.

So ends this tale of woe. For the next year I pretty much wandered in my thoughts. At a coin-operated laundry, of all places, I met Christine. She noticed I was engulfed in a detective magazine. With the rusty dryers taking an unworldly amount of time to do their jobs, we slipped away next door to a local tavern. Three mai-tais later we were friends based purely on our common preferences.

This friendship has developed into a life bonding one. Yes, we are roommates but there is not and never has been any gayness to it. She has her boyfriends, I have mine. We even work for the same modeling agency now and both earn respectable wages.

Both of our wardrobes are replete with new silk scarves and a plentiful supply of the most reliable nylons on the market. There are even a few satin belts lying around here somewhere.

The unexpected legacy has come full circle, and the unexpected piece of good fortune is in place on the gameboard.

For 16 years and to this day the house which Leonard and I resided in remains vacant.