OLD DREAMS REALIZED

 When I was a young child, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied: An adult. That produced some hilarity and then I continued by telling them I also wanted to be an Indian, living in Canada, have my own horses, become a hunter and a pilot and travel to Tahiti on a sailing vessel and see the world. "It's a nice dream, son and many people have dreams like that, but they never come to be."

I no longer dream those dreams. I did all that and at this time I train a mustang to do mounted archery after  I lost my yacht to a tropical cyclone in Fiji 2016. I got my inspiration when I watched a video of a man, Lajos Kassai, resurrecting an old Hungarian tradition of mounted archery, used in warfare with great success by the Huns and the Mongols. I strive for the skill and the sport of it and because I love horses and the discipline it takes to fling arrows from the back of a horse while galloping and hit the target of my choosing. I love all kinds of activities that require skill, like martial arts and archery is one of them. Practicing it every day, my ability to hit a milk jar swinging on a string from 20 meters away inspired many of my friends and they practice with me. Now we are looking forward to the joys of horseback riding and explore our surroundings at a leisurely pace. I will use my bow and add some extra excitement to that, My pony Free Spirit is a wonderful companion and is not bothered a bit when I shoot off her back. She doesn't flinch, not even twitching an ear to my madness and if I ever decide to take her on a hunting trip, I know, she will be a reliable partner.

ALIEN?

I falsely presumed to have originated on this planet, but that assumption was corrected about the age of four when my alleged parents told me the truth. A stork had delivered me to them from another galaxy, which accidentally dropped me on the Earth.

Reluctantly I admitted the possibility, after observing the predominant species on this planet. Although I looked like them, there seemed to be emerging evidence that I was different. The herd mentality is still very strange to me, as I did not like to be in big groups.  Moreover, I don't have the tendency to self-destruction, and I like to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.

It was a very lonely time while growing into my teenage years. I wanted to be like other kids, but they must have known of my off-world origin because they picked me last for soccer teams even though I wasn’t the worst player. I seldom had more than one friend at a time and seemed to see things that others did not. For example, I noticed it was not raining between the raindrops, and a glass filled half full with water was also half empty.

Indeed, a friend of mine got very upset about my observations and informed me that was the reason nobody liked me. At first, I thought he meant they did not like me because the glass was half empty or only half full, but then he clarified that it was because I did notice both, and they did not. Hardly my fault, I thought, all they had to do is to take notice by looking, but it was too late. My reputation as being strange escalated into "weird" and "out of this world" in a negative way. I became known as "the spaced-out kid" or "Sputnik" for short.

In order to live with such people, I went undercover. I did the same things as them so I would not be discovered to be an alien, although I was not convinced yet of my alien status. As years went by I felt more and more a stranger, and noticed in conversation with others that I was not interested in talking about trivial things. Who was who in the music world or in sports, when and how many goals someone scored, just left me cold. On the other hand, I was interested in discussions about how big the universe is, or when God started his life and who created him. This was definitely not the way to break down my fellow schoolmates' suspicion about me, and reading science fiction stories did not help either.

My popularity was limited to stirring up the teachers, particularly Father Juergen, a corpulent man who was easier to jump over than to go around, and who had a voice that reminded me of the chirping of a sparrow just before the cat got hold of him! The way he moved about in front of his desk in sudden spurts as much as his mass allowed, his head jerking and swiveling on a thick double chin, brought out my cat nature and tempted me to take a swipe at him. His piggish eyes, with heavy bags of dark rings fitting his red thin remnants of hair, were arched in an inquisitive way as he waited for questions he could authoritatively answer.

Except for my questions that is. To this day I'm convinced he would have loved for me to be put in a cauldron with boiling water like a side of pork so he could watch me squirm. No wonder I put my most challenging questions to him. It was a match made in heaven and the other students loved the way the class went when he and I had our battles. They just sat back or played battleship.

My other victim, our history teacher, loved asking me questions. I answered with a question of my own which he refused to answer, and instead, he insisted it was important to remember when Charles Charlemagne became king of the Franks. I wanted to know for whom it was important. It didn't seem important to me, and what relevance did it have for this moment? The war was on, and we created history instead of digging up bones!

In one instance we had a discussion about borders. My point of view was that borders were artificial man-made divisions because people did not want to share with others what they had, and so created enemies. He rejected this with a wave of his hand; saying "why" was irrelevant because the fact is that there are borders. I replied that that will change with time, and perhaps one day there will be a world without borders. "Dream on", he said and continued rattling off dates and events.  I envisioned a unified Europe when I was twelve, and people laughed at me for saying it.  Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but it is almost a fact now. Maybe it was only wishful thinking, or perhaps being an alien allowed me to see into the future?

To my delight, I discovered some fellow aliens. They were also working undercover to change our species suicidal attitudes and greedy behavior, by giving living examples and advice on how to live in love and mutual respect for everything and everybody, authentically and with awareness for the benefit of existence. Death and destruction are poor alternatives. How much do we need and take with us, to die satisfied?

I embarked on my journey with a sailing vessel to learn more about this planet called Earth, also known as Gaia and Terra and found it to be a place of great beauty that is attacked by the greed and ignorance practiced by its occupants and called “progress”. They make movies and write sci-fi stories about aliens attacking Earth and invariably are portrayed as the enemy. It's strange to see people looking for an enemy outside of themselves, fighting and killing each other to eliminate their foe, blaming others for their situation instead of looking inward where they would encounter the real enemy. They are destroying the planet they are living on, and it is not an enemy from outer space they need to worry about! They do a great job this far and we couldn’t do better even if we wanted to.

This planet is covered with water more than 70% and only about 1% is used for everything that requires fresh water and the inhabitants are treating it as a garbage dump. Out of sight to them means it is gone. Fact is, all this usable water has been recycled since life on Earth began and in the meantime we put so much garbage into the water, air, and soil that the filtering effect has been compromised to an extent that we now need to buy water in stores which have been artificially filtered to be consumable. In many places on this planet, I can assure you, my toilet is cleaner than the surrounding water! Remember: there is no water coming from an outside source to replace our dwindling supply of good, healthy water. 

Slash and burn is practiced on land. Clear-cutting destroys habitat for all living beings including humans. Only mechanical robots don't need clean air to breathe. I like calling this planet Aqua-world because there is so much water. Many of those other aliens prefer to be on, near or submerged in water, so there is a possibility where we come from is a water planet also.

However, I also met a great number of natives on this planet who are using floating vessels and enjoying the waters while adapted to the herd mentality with the attitudes of sheep. They allow others to think for them and to do as they please. This is similar to their land-dwelling cousins who are satisfied with solid ground under their feet and feel secure as long as there is nothing moving. Death is like that, not moving, stable and safe. Death seems to be the most desired condition for many. That might explain the self-destructive tendency. It is very evident in mass-opinions like politics, religions, cultural identities and worldviews. It can be found on football fields, sports arenas, in churches, temples, and battlefields. Instead of teaching and promoting individuality, they created institutions called schools and universities where mass conditioning is carried out. Don't move your mind, don't rock the boat, and don't question authority! Can you imagine the stupidity of priests blessing soldiers going to kill, writing bible verses on guns and bombs and tolerating it? As a matter of fact, it is defended as the right thing on mass media. If that is not the ultimate in religious stupidity and hypocrisy claiming to teach love, I don’t know what is.

The galaxy of my alien species discovered individuality as the preferred method of coexistence.  We come together as individuals to perform a task that requires a group effort.  When the task ends, the group dissolves into individuals again, following their own bliss without a trace of herd mentality. We have no politicians, priests, bureaucrats, lawyers or leaders, and therefore we are not imbecile followers. We've learned to resolve our issues without the involvement of others who have nothing to do with the problem. We are not looking for who did what to take cheap revenge, but look at the problem and work together to fix it. The problem is the issue, not the person. People can be educated, no problems. We don't believe in punishment or rewards, or in inducing guilt and shame in others.   We have no conformists. We keep no secrets from each other, because only the one who knows secret benefits, and all others are left out. We understand that possessions create thieves therefore we share. There are no wars, no hunger, and no greed.  Nobody has more rights because they have more than others; there is no privileged class.

If this sounds utopian, try a different approach to education. First, you must educate your educators because ignorant educators can only teach ignorance. Ask yourselves why you'd place belief before knowledge. Believing is easy. All one needs to do is to tolerate being dunked under water and say: “I believe, I’m saved.” The only thing you will be saved from is the work required to think for yourself and acquire knowledge.

You know, one man with one eye may lead a million blind but will never follow a million blind. A person of knowledge will transcend beliefs. Remain inquisitive until there is no doubt left. Find out if what you've learned is indeed the truth, or if it may have changed over time. Any person who "knows" has a closed mind. Nothing is certain because everything changes, so remain open. Become role models, teach with your being, and remember, nobody ever learned swimming on dry land. How can you enjoy the sweet fruits of your own cherries if you plant thistles instead of cherry trees? Think about this.

Of course, it is not that easy to shed old habits, and I acquired many of them during my stay on this planet, being surrounded by humans and educated by them.  But in the end, I remembered that all I have been taught wasn't necessarily the truth. The problem isn't what I was taught; but rather that I believed it. Not that I had much choice. After all, I did not have any other aliens around me, and if I did, did not recognize them at that time. It's nearly impossible when society's education puts a blindfold of ideas over one's eyes through which to see the world, and we grow up believing them and thinking we are thinking.

As it turned out, fortune led me to my parents. They had been educated Roman Catholics, and my father had been a soldier in the German army during the Second World War. During his service, his beliefs had been shaken off, and he questioned everything that he heard and thought to be true. My mother still wanted to believe and searched for God in every religion, and found it nowhere. She insisted on me reading the bible every day. So on one side, there was my mother who pushed me to read and believe the bible, on the other side, was my father who warned me that living in Hungary under the communist regime, I would be subjected to brain-washing in school by listening to the same propaganda every day.

Four years of school in Hungary proved to have been enough for me to recognize (after our escape in 1956 to Germany) that the same thing happened in the church. On top of all that, now my soul was threatened with hellfire for eternity if I did not believe the teachings of the priest. Siberia sounded better each day!

The questions I asked during religious studies were enough to arouse the suspicions of the priest, who had the ears of God and could sentence me to hell. I stopped caring what would happen when I discovered that he could not answer my questions, and just wanted me to stop asking them so he could continue with his lectures.

At the age of thirteen, after a determined refusal to go to church on my part, I wanted God to punish me with death so my mother would cry over my grave for trying to force me. Challenging God was the ticket. Shouting an insult of the worst kind I could come up with, and believe me, Hungarians have a monopoly on choice words when it comes to insults, I expected a lightning bolt to strike me as swift as a pick-pocket in the streets of Agassiz.

Strangely enough, no lightning struck, but instead I had the sudden recognition that there is no God outside of existence. All of the existence including me is the same thing. There is nobody to punish or reward me.

This insight opened doors I never even knew were there, and when the police found me and took me home after my parents' alerted them to my disappearance, my mother thought I had a nervous breakdown after listening to what happened, and decided to have our priest look at me. After a 15 minute evaluation of my condition he put his hand around my neck, and with a red face demanded of my parents to have me undergo an exorcism because the devil got hold of me.

As my mother and father were more loving than the servant of God, they took me to a psychiatrist who listened to me for four hours telling him what I did, thought, felt and experienced that night in the park. He then called my parents and inquired from them if I had any Buddhist, Hindu or Eastern philosophy training. Of course not, we are Catholics. Why?

"Well", he said, "what I gather is that the things he says are eastern in concept but I need to see him a bit more to be sure." When they asked what he thought had happened to me, he answered: "Whatever happened to him, I wish it would happen to me!"

That episode of my life is etched in my memory. It has influenced my ways of thinking and observing events around me and has affected my path in life, especially around the issues of freedom, religion, and education. When we are taught what to think, that is not freedom. Being taught how to learn is closer to it.

There are laws; civil laws, corporate laws, criminal laws etc. that mostly originate in some religious superstition about moral concepts and conduct. Some are based on common sense, but all are limiting freedom. At least common sense laws are arrived at by common agreements between different people, while the others are imposed.

Take the Ten Commandments; all of them suppress emotional expression. How on earth are you going to explore your potential if you have to stuff it down? How would you know how to correct an error, if you do everything right? How could you know what a mistake is? What is a mistake anyway, and how could you fix it and develop solutions if you won't experiment? We all are making mistakes, and when we use intelligence we learn from them. Too bad only a small percentage of humans are wise enough to do so.

Remember: A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor. We have to have challenges to grow and push the boundaries to discover new things and ways or we’ll grow stagnant. Remain inquisitive, it’s nature’s gift to us. God never gave commandments, Moses did! It is said: God loves unconditionally, so why would he give you commandments? Moses did that because he could not handle his sheep any longer. After 40 years of being too stupid to find his way out of the desert, his control over his flock was slipping out of his hands. He needed a law that cannot be questioned. He had been a lawyer at the court of the pharaoh before his odyssey, and that's what lawyers do, they insist on laws when intelligence fails. Moral of the story: Never leave it to a lawyer to find a way out of the desert!

So what is this lawyer guy to do? Call on a higher authority, that's what they do, even today. Stupid people never cease to amaze me. They are imbued with God's immortality. Nobody dares to question it. I remember a guy who answered me about why he believed in God?  "Just in case", he said.  Mind you, he kept doing all the things that will take one straight to hell according to the commandments. And so do millions, causing me to wonder why are they going to church and claim to be of any faith? Might as well use that time to make love to someone, at least it will be really fun.

All these fantasy ideologies have not created any peace and I daresay, do just the opposite, but humans cling to it as a monkey to a fistful of peanuts, even though their freedom and life depend on letting go.

There was a guy named Marx who said; "religions are the opiate of the masses" and another one said; "if one has science or art, he has religion".  More likely if they don't have science or art, they have religion. On my planet, we would choose art and science any day.

When sailing down the coast I ran into some heavy weather, and it put me in danger of losing my life every second for two days, and I remembered a priest saying "there are no atheists in foxholes". How would he know? He was never around those people when they died. How would he know unless they survived and then credited their escape with God's mercy? What kind of hogwash is that? During all those hours of howling winds, crashing waves and life-threatening situations not once did I call on God or even though about it. I was too busy surviving.

Someone asked me if I was afraid and I answered no, I was too scared to be afraid. Scared that the boat would break, or that my daughter would be very upset over my lost at sea status. Was I afraid of dying? Hell no! I was more afraid of not living! And live I did, and still do. There will be time enough to relax from living when I'm dead, but I'll refuse to die before I've lived, and there is no better time than NOW to live because there are no other Now.

Death will come to all of us (except to Texans. If they cannot take it with them, they ain't goin'!) And we never know when that moment comes so you might as well live now and enjoy every second fully aware, or you'll die regretting not having lived. Unawareness of living is the same as being dead. In an unaware state, we hurt each other. Just imagine not having the chance to say you're sorry to someone you hurt before they die. Or imagine you wanted to see the world before you die, and you are dying with a million dollars on your bank account without having done so because you were too busy piling up the money.

Death is the only certainty and once you fully understand that, you are free to live and be unconcerned about death. She will come regardless of who or what or where you are. Don't act dead while still alive. Live it up!

A Zen student asked his master: "Master how should one live his life?"

The master answered: "By preparing himself for death."

"But how can one prepare himself for death?" asked the student.  

                  "By learning how to live." was the old man's reply.

Robin Williams, playing Patch Adams, used the words in a sense that death is not the enemy, indifference is. Why are we so afraid of death? It's the natural end of life. Let's be prepared for that.

This message is thousands of years old and we still do not understand it. Maybe we teach the wrong messages. Millions suffer fear from countless diseases, and the worst of them all is fear. In fact, fear causes most disease.

Religions induce fear if you don't believe what their leaders want you to believe, and induce hope for an eternal life if you do believe what they say. Some even promise a reward if you do their God's will, according to what they tell you God's will is. And then we have stressed out over which God is real, and what is the true will of Him, Her or It. Nothing kills better than stress.

What a big surprise when you arrive at the Pearly Gates and there are no virgins, no Saint Peter, just an old hag without teeth asking you to give her back her youth. Know that if a God wants something from you he or she will tell you that him or herself. Never let a person tell you what the will of God is. They only want you to further their objectives without putting themselves in danger. Don't be a sheep no matter what they promise you.

Our planet has no sheep, and nobody tells you what to do, what to think, or how to feel. We understand there is no right or wrong because that would mean there is judgment. Situations exist, and if the situation is undesirable we change it when it is in the interest of all by consulting with each other for the highest good of all concerned, and act accordingly. We may not always come up with a solution that pleases everybody and then we sacrifice our idea in favor of the other and see what happens. There are no guarantees in anything, and knowing that allows for flexibility. That's why life is an adventure, or in the words of Forest Gump's mother, "Life's a box of chocolates". You never know what you'll get.

If I'd known what to expect on my travels, I would never have left. This world is the best so far. I've never learned this much about myself while living on land. There were always others around me whom I'd been busy observing and comparing myself with, and never had time to find out who I was. It took only three days alone in the open sea to find the person I searched for all my life, me.

I watched waves, clouds, and the winds and there were no two the same. They mixed and formed other patterns, shapes, and appearances, and reality was the result only in the moment, not in the past or the future. Patterns dissolve and form new patterns every second, and even that is too long a time span. It's like observing along a sharp knife-edge, without width.

Other things became clear to me also. The way reality is, or the way I see it is the interference of waves from many sources. We all contribute, making waves of our own design, and the results of all those waves together create reality. Of course, what I think will affect reality, but so does everybody's thoughts, and the interference of all those thoughts is what reality is. Some are small, others huge but they all contribute to reality, and we are able to affect the size of those waves.  We all need to learn about cause and effect so we can make wise choices.

Ah well, these are just my ideas and I will not claim them to be the truth. Surely these thoughts have been thought and observed before, but not by me. For me, they are new and therefore significant insights. The good news is; if I can have them, anybody can have them too, and you don't even have to be an alien.

A REFUGEES POINT OF VIEW

I am a refugee. I am also human. And I'm ashamed of it.

As a young child, I lived with my sister and parents in Budapest and often listened to my parents, our neighbours, and friends, talking about things I didn't understand. At the age of four I could read and just started practicing writing and it was my mother who made me read the bible every day and was upset when I inquired why there was a tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden if god didn't want his creation to have knowledge. To me it didn’t make any sense. My father called repeated lectures “Brainwashing” and by the time I turned nine, I had a better understanding what my father meant about brainwashing and freedom. I began to think and question everything. Why did god choose one nation over another and even commanded them to kill others or be made slaves if they were all his children? Why did he gave them free will, but then judged them when they exercised it? Did another god create us or did we descend from apes?

I remembered in school we had to do what we were told. There was no choice, no freedom and we all wanted to escape that repression.

My father told us frequently about the horrors of the Second World War in Stalingrad. He had killed other people and had been wounded seven times during the war to fight someone else's war. From him, I learned one version of freedom and strict discipline, from my mother another, but it eluded my understanding how obedience would be freedom of choice. Freedom to me was something that had to do with living life without fear. That wasn't the case with the life we lived.

My father was rather bold and outspoken and often had outbursts of immense anger and violence. He cursed the Jews, the Bolsheviks, Communist, the church, and god, more or less with the typical coarse swearwords Hungarians are so fond of. Even today at my age I often catch myself using the same words in my mother tongue when I'm upset about something.

Why am I writing about this and what does it have to do with a refugee's point of view?

First, and foremost, for the simple reason to settle you into my shoes as a refugee and someone yearning desperately for freedom, peace, and self-determination.

Second to point out the differences between a more or less peaceful childhood and that of a life in a country that doesn't have these luxuries.

We struggled every day to get food on the table and often went without it. My parents didn't belong to the elitists' communist party and had no privileges. My mother had to line up for rations a day before it was distributed and on occasions came home with tears in her eyes, hugging instead of feeding us. She worked as a heavy crane operator at GEMA, a steel and heavy equipment-producing factory and left the house at five in the morning and returned exhausted in the late evening just before dark. It was up to me to take my sister to the kindergarten before school and pick her up and take her home when school was over. My father was gone somewhere else and was rarely home, or perhaps I just didn't see him being home. I think he was earning a living as a butcher and commercial painter and didn’t spend much time with us.

Of course, we as children thought that was normal, but from the remarks and comments from them and others, it became clear something was not as it could be. Reading bible stories also painted a completely different picture of what peace and happiness were supposed to be. It sounded like a fairy tale, but with other, very scary elements. There were for my taste too many stories of atrocities and murder committed by the will of god and it caused me to ask many questions for which nobody seemed to have good answers.

Then 1956 happened. Students staged a peaceful demonstration in Budapest and it ignited a bloody revolution. My father thought I was old enough to be going along and fight the, as he called them, oppressors as other kids did the same. As the fighting intensified, it seemed the Hungarian people won against the Russian and Hungarian authorities, and then the tables turned.

Russian tanks rumbled into Hungary and flooded Budapest. From a hill I watched them passing by at about one hundred yards away while we dug for potatoes in the ground. Two of my friends, young boys, one twelve the other fourteen years old stood up to have a better look and were mowed down from a tank's gunner. Their bodies exploded with the hits and turned them into an unrecognizable bloody pulp in front of my eyes.

Before I was hit, my mother jerked me to the ground and pressed my face to her while bullets chirped like angry hornets over our heads. An eternity later someone lifted us to our feet and I will never forget my mother's sobbing at our survival, that I was still being alive with her, and over the two boys who were our neighbours, now dead. Other men tended hurriedly to the bodies of several people, many of them dead. They seemed worried, expecting the return of the tanks to finish what they started.

I remember the heavy silence in our house and the grim face of my father as he refused to talk to my mother or us children. The next day my father took me along on his motorcycle to see what we could do against the tanks. It was about freedom and survival, he said. My mother had no idea where we went.

With a bottle full of gasoline and a rag for a fuse we waited for an opportunity to single out one of the war machines and when that moment came, I rushed the moving vehicle, jumped up on it, clambered to the hatch, and as my father had instructed, lit the fuse, and dropped the bottle into it. For me, it was about payback for my friends, but the most frightening experience was the screaming, encased in flames men, trying to escape the tank and being killed by my father and two of his comrades while the horrifying surge of power over life and death of another that cursed through my veins. That has haunted me for many years. The rest is history.

We fought for freedom and survival and then my father left one morning from home and we didn't hear from him for weeks and thought him dead. The night following his disappearance a truck with a mounted machine gun, a huge, bright searchlight, and six uniformed men stopped at our building, lit up the house, and a booming voice demanded my father to come out. My mother ushered us under the bed while she stepped outside to confront the men. She told our neighbours later that one of the men got off the truck and roughly shoved the barrel of his Kalashnikov into her stomach and demanded to stop our dog from barking or he would turn him into a sieve. During her dealings with those men I held my sister tight to stop her from whimpering, myself shaking like a leaf. I feared for my mother and heard her talking to the man, telling him what a brave man he was to threaten a woman and a tethered dog with a gun while five more gave him cover from the safety of a truck. Then she informed him that her husband, my father, was probably among the other dead freedom fighters where he too ought to be, not among the government soldiers.

Does this scenario sound familiar? I don't think so because you most likely never went through a situation as this in your life.

When we received a note from my father that he sent from Vienna, Austria, through a man working for the Red Cross to escape to the West, my mother gave away all that we had, packed us into warm clothes and together we took the train to Hegyeshalom, a small town near the Austrian border. She found a man to guide us to the border and promised to give him all the money she had, which was pitiful enough, plus her wedding ring. In the night, the three of us, my mother and my sister and the man by the name of Lajos, left unseen from the place we were hiding. In the shadow of the railway tracks we made our way towards the border, sometimes crawling on our bellies, at other times bent over and running. Several times we had to flatten ourselves to the ground to remain unseen when flares lit up the night.

In every shadow I saw men coming to get us and the path was rough, full of sharp rocks and thorns. Once we were shot at and I heard the sound of bees passing my head. A bullet went through my mother's coat, but she was not hit. Not so Lajos. His elbow shattered and he suppressed a cry as he urged us on, clutching his arm as we stumbled to get away from the area. The border was near, he said, when suddenly two men with guns popped up in front of us, demanding to know where we were heading. Both were from the Hungarian border patrol and my mother told them that she intended to meet her husband in Vienna and that our guide needed medical attention.

The guards tried to make her turn around and she said to them that she would take us to our father unless they killed her. After some more talking the men decided to take the money and look after Lajos and then let us go. Lajos had to stay with them. We never found out what happened to him.

Short after a walk along the tracks, we heard voices calling out in a foreign language and my mother started to cry. Other man came out of the darkness and one of them said we were safe and in Austria.

I can't really recall how we got to Vienna, but when our father met us, we all cried and hugged for a long time.

That Christmas we attended the Johann Strauss Festival at the States Opera in Vienna and for the first time I saw and felt what beauty could be. It was the kind of heaven I imagined it to be. My parents were happy and talked about a future in Germany, painted everything in glowing colors. The only important thing for my sister and I was that we all were together. People brought us food and clothing and took care of all out needs. We visited the Prater, an amusement park, and it was one of the highlights in my life and then came New Year.

We were asleep when all of sudden all hell broke lose. Somehow it slipped away from my parents that it was customary for the West to celebrate New Years with fireworks. They were caught by surprise just as us kids. I remember how I grabbed my sister and fled under the bed like greased monkeys, my heart pounding and my bladder spilling its contents. It took some time to calm down and relax.

Naturally, over time we got used to it and even celebrated New Years like everybody else. But still today I recall the times during our revolution in Hungary and feel grateful to have escaped the horrors and the oppression. I never realized then how careful we had to be about what we said and did, the hardships of our daily lives and the struggle our parents had to keep us fed and clothed.

Still, I remember being an outcast because of the stigma being a refugee and being treated as an unwanted entity. I was seldom chosen to play in a team and it wasn't because I wasn't good. I learned inside of weeks to speak German and a year later a linguist told me I that I spoke better German than my contemporaries, but I was never accepted and remained an outsider, a "Rucksack Deutscher" (Backpack German).

I had many fights in school and was the most favourite person to be picked on and it was never one-on-one. The stigma of being a stranger had stuck on me persistently and had been refreshed year after year by my peers. I'm still seen as a strange person and this is nearly sixty years later. It has shaped who I am today. Among many other things I'm an author, but above all I'd like to see people understanding what it is like to be seen as a stranger and what it does to a person's life.

Most of the people living in the western world didn't live a life of turmoil, wars, oppression, poverty, and slavery or being persecuted for an ideology, color of skin or for what they believe. They didn't have to fight for their very survival every day, wondering if any of their loved ones would be alive next day. You only see your suffering, often committed by your own people and think it unbearable, but never look at the lives and suffering of the people who are looking for a peaceful life and some happiness. You deny them that and I'd like to invite those people to live one week in those war-torn places where it is a daily occurrence taking cover from attack from the air, or from the ground while scrounging for food and shelter and being exposed to the whims and mercy of others.

When you get lucky to escape all that and arrive at the border of another country that promises safe haven, you would be turned around, refused entry based on your ideology, heritage or nationality. I wonder what your state of mind will be then. Will you still spout your political views the same as you did before from the safe place of your present home?

Those people yearn for their freedom to be happy and have peace every day. You people fight for leadership and prestige. Refugees fight for a life in peace while you fight for an ideology, wanting to be someone that people recognise; a movie star, a rich person, a beauty queen, or a president. And don't come up with terrorist as an excuse that they want you to convert to a religion you don't like. You insist the same way to be right as they are. There is not much of a difference, only the methods are. There is something called physical violence and something that is called ideological violence. Telling another what to believe is belligerence no matter what you believe. Any belief system to me is BS, but that is only what I believe. By letting go of beliefs, you'll lose all reason to disagree and fight over it.

Personally, I shed all beliefs and feel no need to convert another to my ways of thinking. Facts can be interpreted any way you like, but it won't change the facts. Your interpretation of facts is what is causing the entire ruckus. From experience, I can tell you, no matter how you interpret being hit with a stick over the head, the fact that it hurts will be the same, no matter what you believe.

As a refugee, I'd like to tell you; all that bluster of how to deal with refugees boils down to one thing, COMPASSION. It has the power to change minds. Hatred begets hatred. Welcoming attitudes create a friendship. Study that in depth. Take this message to your neighbours, your politicians, and priests. And please, be aware of whom you support; it tells a lot about you.

André Schwartz

PREVIEW ON THE LION ROARED "AWAKENING"

Soon be available on Amazon

1   RECONNECTING

"Tell me, Gábor, how many jokes do you know. The last one was two days ago and I'm starving for a good laugh. Did the cat get your tongue or are you experiencing a, hopefully just temporary, brain-freeze? It's your turn now. Let's hear one."

Ivan, the handsome European man, a silver-gray, bearded, older gentleman, wearing his shoulder-long hair loosely to his shoulders, making the impression of an aristocrat, sat with two mixed blood, native Polynesian women around a large table, apparently having a good time, addressed the other man with darker hair and much younger, and just as fit.

Tall in stature and fit looking with bright blue eyes, his arm around the shoulder of the older woman, he looked at his friend challengingly. The elder woman just finished telling of an amusing incident at the hospital where she worked as a surgeon, sat opposite a younger version of her. Vai, her daughter, turned her head toward the younger man at her side.

"Yes, it's your turn, Gábor. Ivan's humour seems to revolve around ethnicities. I'd like to hear something else now. What do you have?"

Graying at the temples, with an open face and brown, laughing almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones and flashing bright teeth, he seemed to be not older than forty or forty-five. With European features, handsome and casually dressed, he gave the impression of a teacher or a learned man.

He now took a deep breath and paused a few seconds before he opened his mouth to tell them the first joke that came to his mind.

"I came back from a sailing trip with some friends and my face and hands sported a tan after three days on the water. I wanted to have a drink and went to this local watering hole to have a beer. I sat down at the bar, ordered a draft and then this gorgeous woman entered, great body, great legs, and all that, so I looked her over. She looked me over and asked if I were perhaps a sailor. Well, I told her I just came off a boat and admitted loving them, and perhaps I was a sailor in my heart. Perhaps my eyes were a bit too long on her bust because she threw her head back and started to tell me that she was a lesbian. All day long she thought about women, the way they talked, walked and moved, she said.

She even told me what she liked to do with them, and then she got up and walked out, leaving me wondering. Then a guy sat down next to me, looked at me, and asked the same question this woman had asked. 'Are you a sailor?' 'No,' I said. 'I just found out I'm a lesbian."

His audience's laughter roused the interest of other patrons in the lobby of the hotel and they craned their heads to catch a glimpse of the group. The young woman had both hands and her forehead on the shoulders of the younger man, shaking with laughter while the older couple had their heads tilted toward the ceiling and let out a full-throated laughter. It took a while for them to calm down and that gave the other guests time to have a better look at the group.

Both women were of exceptional beauty and were obviously related; perhaps mother and daughter, but they could have been siblings as well. The older women had blue eyes set in a natural bronze tanned skin with long black hair held by a shell at the nape of her neck. Her youthful figure made her appear not much older than the young, equally beautiful woman. Slender with emerald green eyes, the younger woman was as fascinating as the older person. Her appearance seemed ethereal and an otherworldly sheen on her face set her apart from many women. Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes she glanced at the man beside her, she appeared to have something on her mind, something of emotional content, but then she just complimented him.

"This was one of the best jokes I've heard," she said. "Thanks. Me too. I needed a good laugh," and the rest of the group agreed. Gábor took the praise with a bow of his head, but a smile played on his lips. He was happy that the joke had been well received. Then Vai turned to her mother.

"What time did Ina say she'd come?"

"She fancies herself to be Jacques' servant regarding time. She'll come when he is ready."

Clearly, they were waiting for another couple to show up and the younger woman seemed obviously excited. Her eyes scanned with a barely concealed affectionately over the younger man beside her.

"Ma, would it be a reversal of roles if a native woman had a European man for a servant?"

"It certainly would be fair Sweetie," agreed the older of the two. "Unfortunately it is the white man that figures it fashionable decorating his home with better-looking specimens than they are," laughed the woman addresses as ‘Ma'.

"How did that happen?"

She was making conversation to humour her audience. With insights into historical events of her culture more than the average high school teacher, she enjoyed the entertainment.

Shrugging her shoulders the older woman replied.

"Sadly, they had guns, booze, and germs."

‘Sweetie' turned towards the white-haired man.

"Ivan, you would make a heck of a great looking palace guard. All we'd have to do is to get you a nice costume and a halberd. You could be a magnificent décor to our place."

"It's very tempting, but Gábor has given me the job to be the guardian of his family. Unless you're offering me a position to be the chaperon of your youthful mother and perhaps you, I must regretfully decline," replied Ivan with a sideswipe at recent events he witnessed.

Vai gave him a warning look and before she could formulate an answer Gábor spoke up.

"Becoming Leilani's chaperon would be like dressing the wolf in sheep's attire after he ate her," ventured the man called Gábor.

Treading lightly, he didn't really want to make waves. He had a fresh history with the young woman and his morality concepts based on honour were severely challenged. He and Vai only short time ago had engaged in extramarital sex and his consciousness was still in turmoil over it. He loved his wife, but couldn't resist this young woman who had made it clear that she didn't have any intentions to take him from her but to be his lover alongside her. He had no idea how to manage that without Helena finding out.

Knowing himself and his inability to lie, he found himself in an impossible arena. Falling in love with Vai seemed as natural as with his wife. Both were spirited and extremely beautiful, intelligent and sexually liberal and attractive as a black hole; he wouldn't be able to escape either one. Additionally, Vai's mother seemed to feel attracted as much to him as she was to his friend Ivan, and he didn't know what to make of that. To complicate matters, her daughter found it exciting that her mother wanted to ‘play' with him too and to his embarrassment he felt tempted to do that. Ethically, according to his upbringing, it was dishonourable to even think trespassing on someone's partner, and Ivan was the closest friend he had. Yet he had indulged with Vai and her mother was just as attractive and he was married. He did surrender to Vai and if he succumbed to her mother's seductive charm how could he face his friend, his wife Helena and how would they react? He would have to guard himself as he had never before.

The waitress interrupted his troubling concerns.

Leilani wanted to know what they wanted to eat and they asked for the menu. They were checking what was available when Hinanu, Vai's older sister, and Jacques, her partner, showed up.

Jacques was a tall, bald man with a short beard, a moustache, and a tan. Blue eyes and a big nose over his thin lips and a cleft on his chin made him appear fashionably handsome. Dressed in slacks with a sharp crease, pale blue, long-sleeved shirt, and tie, he was the image of a businessman. He looked his age and had a slight limp favouring his left leg and Gábor wondered if it was a permanent injury or just recent.

When they walked into the lobby, Gábor faced the entrance and saw them first. Seeing Hinanu again, this time with her partner, it still surprised him how similar the sisters were. Hinanu looked so much like Vai, that Gábor had a hard time taking his eyes off her. She did look older or perhaps more mature than Vai and her complexion not as dark, but when the light was dim, they would be hard to tell apart if they wouldn't have had different hairstyles. A few days in the sun and she would have a tan like her mother and sister. The perfect bridge between Leilani and Vai, in looks she was gorgeous. These girls had inherited their mother's look to a "T".

She wore a white tank top that left her belly exposed and wearing a greenish looking pearl in her belly button had him look twice. She looked very sexy with it. The dark blue pants, low and tight around her waist, accentuated her hips. Farther down, the pant legs flared wide and made it look as if she had a long skirt on instead of pants, very much the same style Vai wore in white before she had spilled tea on herself an hour ago.

Now, with the exception of the tank top, they looked almost identical. She was as beautiful as Vai and he wondered how she ended up with a man twice her age. She must have the same preferences as Vai, he thought. They all got up and hugged, the women did the inevitable French greeting, kissing both sides of the face enthusiastically. Hinanu used a few phrases with Gábor and Ivan in their native tongue and then took their seats, studied the menu, and made her selection. Vai, Ivan, and Gábor ordered Sashimi, Leilani a steak with scallops and baked potatoes, Jacques' a plate with pork. They placed the order and the conversation began.

"What brings you here this time? The last time you came, you did not like to travel in the high season because you were inundated with tourists' self-inflicted injuries and wanted to keep away from those. What happened?" Jacques asked and Hinanu laughed, looking at Ivan who had his arm around Leilani's shoulder. Leilani answered with a laugh and replied.

"I was on a rescue mission. A man fell over the side of a cruising vessel and washed up on our shore, and then he tried breaking a coconut with his head. We brought him to Tupana and he attracted these gentlemen, who really aren't gentlemen, more like bandits and scoundrels. They were looking for him and found him in my Med-shack. The injured man had to be taken to the hospital and here we are."

"And these men, why are they no gentleman? You seem to be fond enough of him to allow his arm around you. He reminds me of Pat Morita," remarked Jacques. His English was without an accent. "As Mister Miyagi, he had the reputation of a wise man. Isn't he like that?"

"They stole Vai's and my heart. I have now the hard job of keeping Vai away from Gábor and keeping Ivan, this one, close to me."

"Why do you need to keep Vai away from Gábor? He looks like a good man," injected Hinanu, including the two talked about men.

She let her eyes move over Gábor, from head to toe and up again. She liked his look very much and felt a vibe from him that attracted her. She thought whoever his wife was, had to be a very lucky woman.

Then she looked at Vai and thought to see something between her and Gábor, but put it down to just a crush she had on him and understood. Both men looked like real men and were handsome as well. She would be interested in Gábor too if he were single and never mind Jacques. The recent events with him, involving his business partner and her had raised her hackles. Ivan was also very attractive and Hinanu envied her mother but was happy for her. He was definitely a good catch as far as looks go. Vai grinned since her mother began to talk about the two men and now she spoke up, still grinning.

"Ma thinks because a man is married he is taboo, but it hasn't stopped her from having one or two in the past. She said she practiced the old ways then, and now that she has Ivan, she wants to go the western way and inhibits me from trying to resurrect the old way, tsk. Go figure," and both girls laughed, looking at Ivan. Hinanu let her eyes rest on Gábor for a second or two.

Gábor looked as if he was in a dream, she thought.

"Maybe she is getting tired of having that much fun or that's her way she keeps you at bay."

"Aita, no-no. I think she wants to keep Ivan for sure while testing the playground around him whether it's safe to play or not."

Once more they all laughed at that and Ivan didn't look as he had a problem with his lovers past. He was mature enough to understand that biology wasn't connected to whom but to preference in time.

Leilani defended her point by pointing at appropriate procedures that all involved could agree to.

"It is one thing to have an understanding with all engaged and another trying to seduce a man you know to be married behind his partner's back, Vai."

Hinanu observed Gábor. He still looked absent as if he was not present. She wondered how far her sister got tangled up with him. Knowing her and how insistent she could be, he would have to have a strong discipline to resist her. Hinanu knew men well enough.

"Okay, I couldn't resist and perhaps I made a mistake. But suppose I talk with his partner and ask for an involvement. And what if his partner is okay with it? I know that not only our culture had that custom. I read many books on social anthropology and it has been all over the world in older times."

"Vai, times have changed," interjected Jacques. "Almost the entire world with the exception of Islam has the rule; one partner at a time only. Your old customs are done and over with." Hinanu threw a peculiar look at him.

"Oh, come on Jacques. Western societies made those rules out of insecurities. Individuals were afraid to lose their mates and tried to bind them to themselves with regulations and laws and now they go behind their partner's back, outside of their own regulations and screwing around with whom they can and then there are reasons for divorce and other stupid things like morality of what is right and what is wrong." Vai flared passionately and continued while Hinanu noticed Gábor seemed back from wherever he was.

"I'm sure you know that a lot of couples, married or not, have other women or men on the side. Men especially like to have mistresses and often look for young women to surround themselves with at parties, but don't tolerate if their partners have affairs. There are men who "lend" their wives to business associates to further their positions and so it goes on and on, all underwater and bragged about amongst them. I'm sure you know about that. It's not uncommon. It just went underground, as they say."

Gábor observed Hinanu while Vai spoke and seemed to notice a kind of embarrassment and anger flashing on her face and wondered what that was all about. He tried to focus his attention on Vai again. Was Hinanu angry with Vai?

"Foreign religions impose their views on our people and most of our old rules and laws were replaced by western thoughts. You know that Adultery or marriage didn't exist here before you people came here. Now missionaries are telling us what right and moral things according to their views. Like ignorant children, we have adopted their ideas and now we have ‘immorality' when someone loves someone else in addition to their "legal" partner. It became immoral to love someone unless it has the blessing of the church. The missionaries like to look like saints but are far from it. My sister could tell you more of that.

Foreign religious concepts infiltrated our laws; laws and dogmas now declare partnerships legal or illegal. What kind of garbage is that?

Now we own the other and are afraid someone will steal the partner instead joining with him or her. Today you have to leave your partner if you want to love another, although you still love the partner you're with too. This is a stupid rule in my point of view. Join forces, don't divide."

 "And what if they become jealous of each other?" Ivan injected.

 "Jealousy is an ownership issue, not a love issue. In the past we always shared everything. There never was a problem that your culture has." Again, Hinanu thoughtfully nodded to Vai's words.

"And what happens if there are children," asked Jacques, "If their parents decide to separate? What would you do with them?"

Hinanu was clearly curious to hear what Vai thought, but Jacques questioned the validity of Vai's views. When they were children, Vai seemed to think more and deeper than most of the other kids and Hinanu often turned to her for advice despite her age.

"In your view, how do you see children and divorced parents relating? Who should look after the children," she asked her sister.

Gábor observed Hinanu and noticed that there was a similarity the way Helena inquired about issues.

"In my view children are not objects to own. They were born for themselves and not for their parents, but through them. We tend to forget that too often. It is an obligation by both, and even society, to take care of them until they can take care of themselves, and even if their partners don't get along anymore and just don't relate to each other, our society still took care of the child. We had never had orphans in our culture as other cultures have. Only when disputes erupt, which one of the parents should have custody of the child, things go wrong. Taking care of the child comes from love and love does not own, it shares, even responsibilities. When you love someone or something and you share, there will be no conflict. Children belong to the community and the world and it is everybody's responsibility to take care of them until they've grown up."

Vai sipped some water and added.

"And you still can love someone without being sexual with them. It is about letting the other be and not trying to change them to fill your needs and expectations. When one has grown up, one has to be able to take care of one's own needs and not expect the partner to do it for them. When a couple driving a car and end up in the ditch, both must put their effort in to get it up on the road again, don't you think? However, when you decide to drive alone, you are the one that must bear the consequences of your decisions."

Vai looked around and registered everybody's attention on her and finished with the last words.

"I just want to add my abilities to change things in society into a harmonious body where people understand that together we can make changes and have an impact and be noticed. A bird alone against a truck will not be noticed when it hits the windshield, but a whole flock could throw it off course."

While she spoke, the dinner arrived and broke the spell. Letting the waitress serve them, Hinanu was the first to speak again. She appeared to be thinking. Even Jacques had a thoughtful face expression.

"Vai has gotten wiser than I remember her to be. Are you still swimming with the dolphins?"

"Every chance she gets," answered Leilani for Vai because the young woman had her mouth full of food.

"Does she still insist they are as intelligent as humans, and does she still chat with them?" Jacques sounded almost as if he was mocking Vai.

Unaffected Vai picked up again.

"Before we came here, we went to the Eastside and Gábor wanted to know if the dolphins could have possibly saved Lundy, the guy we brought here, and they clearly demonstrated they did indeed."

Hinanu looked at Gábor and was impressed how he gave his attention to Vai as she spoke. He is a very attentive listener, she observed. Not many men really listen to a woman talking, she noticed.

"How did you get them to tell you? You understand their chattering?" Jacques still mocked Vai, but she ignored it.

"I pretended to have a problem in the water and they nudged me around but didn't take me ashore, and I asked Gábor to pretend to fall into the water. He was bleeding a little from some cuts on the rocks and it attracted a few sharks and then the dolphins took care of Gábor, pushing him ashore as the others drove the sharks away."

"That proves nothing," said Hinanu's partner. "They were just playing, like always." Vai didn't react to Jacques' derisive comment.

"Wow. That is clear enough for me," remarked Hinanu. She looked at Gábor and noticed a far-away look on him, and then she glanced at Vai.

To her, it felt as if Vai spoke about him with affection. Were they intimate? Hinanu put her hand on Gábor's to get his attention and felt it warm and dry under her hand. It was a good, strong hand and for a second she wondered how they would feel on her.

"How lucky you are Gábor … Gábor, are you okay?"

When Vai began to talk about customs and relationships, Leo ‘called' and Gábor had linked in. Helena asked Gábor to bring some hardware like a drill, some heavy-duty nuts and bolts, a winch, and some pulleys. She had an idea how to solve the problem of hiding the Hysucat, but then she stayed in the link, interested in their conversation, they listen to Vai and so she got to hear through Gábor's mind all that Vai said. Gábor snapped out of the semi-trance when Hinanu touched his hand and looked a bit out of step with the conversation. He apologized for his lapse of attention to her.

"What was that? I'm sorry, I was somewhere else."

Vai suspected he was in the mind-link. Ivan and Leilani also had a clue, but Hinanu and her partner didn't know about the mind-link, so they wondered if Gábor has just gotten lost in his thoughts while Vai told her story. Helena was not as surprised as Gábor thought she would be at the things Vai said and told him to relax. They would talk a bit more about what Vai said when he was back on the island with her.

"You got lucky the dolphins pushed you ashore. My Dad was diving for pearls and sharks got him. Other divers tried to save him, but he bled to death ashore before they got him bandaged up. If dolphins would have been around, he would have been still alive," Hinanu said, not particularly sad, he noted as she let go of his hand.

"Yes, I admit I was a bit concerned and Vai was deeper in the water. I thought she was in greater danger than I was. She was cool as a cucumber." Gábor recalled her standing up and her naked body exciting him and he stiffened a little at the thought.

"A little off the topic, are there any hardware stores still open?"

"I don't think so. What do you need?" asked Jacques.

"A manual drill, some pulleys, a winch, nuts, and bolts, ropes."

"Sorry, the magazines are closed. I thought something less; I could help you with, but not that stuff. But what do you need it for?"

"I have a project in mind while I'm here, but never mind," he replied and was glad Jacques begun to discuss something with Ivan about construction materials and sports.

They continued to talk about some things Gábor could not relate to and he sat back and just let the droning of their voices go into the background and withdrew into a meditative state. Vai observed him and wanted to be close to him, but with everybody there, it was not a good idea. He got out of it when Hinanu and Jacques got up and hugged everyone and apologized for boring them with their family stuff and asked when they could meet again.

Hinanu had her eyes again on Gábor and for a second she noticed something and looked at Vai. There was something between them. Vai appeared to be in love with Gábor. She couldn't blame her. Gábor looked like a good man, an open face, handsome and apparently reliable. He also appeared to be a good listener, something Jacques could never be. Jacques could only hear himself talking.

"We are going to be here for a while so there is no need to worry," Leilani said. "We will go tomorrow to do some sightseeing, but I will call you when we can meet again. Convey my greetings to your family Jacques."

At their farewell hugs, Hinanu held on to Gábor a little longer and enjoyed his comforting presence. He would be a good man to be with, she felt. If Vai played her cards right, she might have her cake and eat it too. She knew, she would, especially after what transpired two weeks ago. Her relationship with her partner was on shaky grounds since. They said their "Goodnights" and split.

Gábor looked at his watch. It was past ten and he yawned behind his hand. He needed sleep and informed the others and they all agreed and moved toward their rooms. Leilani kissed Gábor on the cheeks and so did Vai.

Ivan holding hands with Leilani walked to the left, Vai straight ahead and Gábor followed her with his eyes before he turned right toward his room. Vai had a walk like a model and he wondered if she did it on purpose for him.

He got to his place, got in, and relieved himself, washed his hands, brushed his teeth, and after removing his clothes completely like always, he went to bed. He would have a shower in the morning. For a few minutes, he lay awake, staring at the dark ceiling, thinking about what Helena said; he needed to know more about women. What did he not know about her?

They were together more than seven years now and he was sure to know Helena's every thought. Was there something she wasn't telling him? Any secrets she didn't want to talk about?

Tired of thinking, he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep. He had a dream about Helena and Vai together, sleeping with him.

Waking when his alarm chirped, he came out of his dream, opened his eyes and looked at his watch; three in the morning. Getting up, he walked into the bathroom, took a refreshing shower, and felt his spirits rising. He dressed and decided to wake the others and have breakfast before leaving.

It was dark outside and the garden lights were guiding him along the path towards Ivan's bungalow when he became aware of another nonthreatening presence, and glanced over his shoulder.

Vai, a few steps behind him, approached him soundlessly. She had showered and dressed in the same outfit she wore when they had that "Quickie" and a flash of excitement rose in him, but he suppressed it; no time for it now. She reached him and they hugged tightly and kissed. Vai had a scent of some perfume that had a very pleasant scent and it imbued her with a fresh and intoxicating quality. Where had he smelled that scent before? Gábor inhaled her scent and pulled her to him for an instant, sniffing.

"Good morning my love. I've missed you," she whispered and her body pressed against his, arousing him in a flash. He stepped back.

"We have to go. There is no time for that now."

She let go of a sigh, took his hand, and continued to walk with him toward Ivan's ‘fare'. Stepping onto the veranda and hearing sounds like a cat's meow he stopped. He looked at Vai. She grinned and whispered.

"They are awake and having a magic session. Let's watch. Careful." She pulled him back and they stepped off the veranda. He hesitated to spy on Ivan and Leilani.

"Didn't you say you don't like Peeping Toms?"

"Not when they are spying on me," she replied with a grin in the dark.

"You're a hypocrite." He whispered.

"The term is voyeur, mon amour," she whispered back. "For educational purposes let's see how he does Ma," she hissed and pulled him toward the back where the windows were. "What's his magic? I want to know."

"No, we can't," whispered Gábor back and pulled on her.

"He did. Now it's our chance to return the favour," she insisted and pulled him along. Gábor had to admit, the prospect seeing Leilani's body, almost a replica of Vai in a passionate embrace with his friend, he felt the adolescent curiosity in him rising as it did when he was a teenager and secretly peered through peepholes in fences when girls on the other side changed into their bathing suits.

Gábor did not like the idea very much, but still let Vai drag him by the hand, silently negotiating some shrubs and then she rose up from a stooped position until she saw the couple from a slight angle.

Both facing them, Ivan reclined and seemingly staring blissfully at the ceiling, while Leilani bounced up and down on his lap, meowing with closed eyes, unaware of the peeping Toms hiding behind the bushes.

Clearly, her mother had Ivan's penis in her but where it was impossible to make out. Judging from the position of her body it could have been her rectum and Vai strained her eyes in vain. Her mother's sex and fingers glistened; she seemed very wet as she moved up and down on Ivan's lap.

Could it be that Ivan was indeed in her rear? If it was, did she like it? She was rubbing herself furiously, moaning and squealing ecstatically with delight, but Vai couldn't make out in which orifice Ivan was.

"I love your hard cock deep in me Ivan. I could shag with you all night like this," heard both stealthy observers Leilani moan, sounding so much like Vai that Gábor had to look.

Ivan's hands on Leilani's hips held and assisted her in her pleasures. Vai had a perfect view of her mother, but not Ivan's penis and what he did with her. Her mother seemed to love whatever he did. Watching her grinding her hips on Ivan got Vai horny. ‘Go for it Ma', she thought and smiled. A "quickie" with Gábor would be okay now.

She withdrew silently and turned to Gábor whispering. "Let's go. We have some time for a ‘quickie' while they have their fun."

Gábor didn't protest and like children they rushed to his place. Watching those two had him hard like a rock and hot like a furnace. It felt thievishly good to be furtive.

Entering the cabin, he left the door open to be able to see Ivan's front door ten meters away. From the couch, in the living room, he would have a good view at Ivan's bungalow and see when they came out. The light inside was off and in the dark room they would be invisible, and if the other couple exited before he and Vai finished, he could sneak out through the window without being seen.

"Safer here," she said and untied the cord holding her pants. To his amazement, she wore no panties and Gábor dropped his slacks.

"They are ahead of us. We must make it short," she stepped out of her pants, threw them onto the chair, kissed him hard on the mouth, turned her back to him, and put her hands on the seat in front of her.

"I want you from behind. Hurry. I need you deep and hard."

Gábor did not need any encouragement and grabbed her hips and his penis found her already wet entrance and pierced her tight pussy with half of his shaft. A hissed "Ah, yes, more, deeper," from Vai and a push back with her bottom got him hot as ever. Vai lifted and arched her back, and Gábor pushing deep inside her, stroking her pussy with his left hand, fingering her clitoris and pulling her hips closer with the right hand and then they established a steady rhythm.

Her breath was hot and her face flushed as was his. Their passion burned like a furnace and was as unstoppable as a runaway train. When he pushed, she pushed back and he sank all the way to the root of his penis into her tight, satin-smooth depth. Her buttocks touched his thighs with each thrust and her laboured panting excited him. His penis moved like a piston in and out of her rapidly for perhaps five minutes and her words "harder, more, ah yes, mon dieu, oh god yes, faster," turned into a mantra.

Grinding his penis in circles into her depth, he felt her stiffening and knew she was about to come and was just as close. He pulled back until his glans was just inside her vagina, then with a fast and hard thrust he jack-knifed several times into her. Vai suppressed a shriek.

"God, Vai, I love fucking you," he gritted his teeth.

Vai was as good as Helena and as desirable. Thinking of Helena, the face of Leilani flashed in his mind as she rode his friend. All these women were built about the same and despite Helena and Leilani's age, their bodies were as trim and fit as Vai's. Fucking her could be as pleasurable as Helena or Vai and he could imagine she had the experience that comes with maturity. Ivan had to be a happy man.

"Oh yes I love fucking you too," she groaned. "You're making me come," and a second later she cried out, "I'm coming, ahh yes, yes. I want you to come too. Give it to me. I want to feel you coming in me." Pressing her sex hard against his groin and feeling him at her deepest being sent, her into ectasy.

Gyrating and grinding her butt onto Gábor, feeling him thrusting deep into her sex in turn and connecting with her cervix with a pleasant pain, his hands pulling her by the hips tight to him, she came. Spasms hit her like shockwaves and she nearly cried out his name in pleasure, her pussy clamped like a vice around his penis, kept him lodged in her. He felt his testicles tightening, he stiffened, grunted and then his cock erupted, jetting his semen spasmodically into her contracting vagina, something he thought he reserved for Helena and now Vai had become a recipient of this life force. He felt the restriction of her cervix into her uterus and there seem to be some kind of energy exchange to happen, something he thought to feel only with Helena. Squirt after squirt he emptied himself into her, and after the last spasms he just rested there, enjoying the feeling of the deep penetration and the tingling on his gland.

Coming in her felt very good indeed and for a second he wished her to become pregnant with his child, but then guilt, fear, and pleasure, all mixed into a cauldron of intense emotions washed over him. If Vai would have a baby, would it look like Leo or would it be a normal child?

Holding her tight, his penis deep in her and feeling her orgasmic waves and rippling in her belly sent his emotions into orbit. If he just could keep both women with him, Helena and Vai, he'd die a happy man.

Vai's waves of spasmodic contractions lasted a long time. Her right hand at her mouth, she bit on her knuckles to stop from screaming loud, and Gábor had a hard time not to shout when he exploded into her. They stayed like this for a little to calm down and then Gábor pulled out. Vai stood up, turned around, and kissed him deeply before letting him go. It took only about ten minutes and it was possibly the shortest copulation with a climax for both and he could only guess how it was possible for them to have an orgasm that fast.

"Thank you, I needed that. Just wash quickly and let's see if they've finished yet. This was exciting, just like on the boat."

They felt naughty and laughed like two teenagers, hurriedly washed their genitals, dressed, and made their way to Ivan's cabin… just as they stepped onto the veranda, the door opened. Leilani and Ivan emerged.

"We just came to see if you were up already," smirked Vai and looked at her mother's flushed face and only hoped hers was not.

"You look happy," her mother remarked and Vai turned her face away from her so her mother could not read her.

She knew her mother well and in the past she had always known when she did something out of line.

"So do you, Ma. What's the reason for your happiness? Ivan?"

"Him and the early morning shower. Let's see if we can get a coffee this morning. I feel like having one." Blushing, Leilani added. "How about you guys?" Ivan looked at Gábor with a quizzical glance.

"I'll have a coffee too if Ivan has one. My treat."

They all wanted a coffee and returned to their rooms to get their bags. Vai still had the afterglow of Gábor's penis inside her and the feeling gave her a different gait.

"You look sexier today than yesterday, Vai."

"Thanks, Ma. I feel sexy in this outfit."

Leilani looked suspiciously at Gábor, but Gábor had his back to her, picking two flowers and giving each woman one. Smiling, he said, "You'll look sexier with these," and grabbed the bags and marched toward the parking lot. Leilani's suspicion eased, but Ivan shook his head. Be careful my friend, he thought.

On Leilani's request he checked up on Gábor last night and hated himself for it, but Gábor was alone and Vai was in her bed. He returned to Leilani and reported them to be in their own rooms. Today Gábor would meet Helena and Ivan hoped for his friends that things would work out smoothly. Returning to the lobby, they ordered their coffee and toast with jam and had a refill of coffee before asking for the check, paid and left.

Ivan was a bit nervous. He knew Helena and loved her centered being, and thought to know women, but had made his mistakes with them because of it. They were a strange breed indeed. Never think you know women, he reminded himself, and opened the trunk of the car and stashed away the bags and then closed the trunk. Behind the wheel, he started the engine and pulled onto the road to the Harbour.