peter rachoff

PETER RACHMANINOFF

A Fictional Short Story of the

Birthdays of a Native of La Jolla

By Izzy Ess of Loneliness

Surviving was essential for Peter Rachmaninoff who had been stranded on an island in the South Pacific.  A storm had surprised him and a lightning bolt had struck his only mast and burned it to the deck of the boat, which also caught on fire.  He was forced to leave everything aboard and jump.  The water was quite cold and he knew how to do a dead man’s float.  When the storm abated, he could see an island not too far away from him.  He doggy paddled to the sandy shore and fell exhausted on the sand.  The sun warmed him.  His Rolex was intact and indicated it was three o’clock.  The number under the bubble crystal was 12, which meant he had lost one whole day since he had abandoned ship.  He had dropped the anchor, cleverly, and now he could see the outline of his burnt down boat about a hundred yards away.  Instinctively, he sought out shade under a coconut palm tree.  A coconut lying on the ground had cracked and he could suck on some remaining milk from it.  He felt a little desperate.  Except for coconuts, there was no food that he could find, except for insects that he ate.  There were large red ants everywhere and they were just filling enough to stave off hunger.  He was happy to discover a tiny lake with cool clear water.  He figured it was rain that had filled a hollow in the sand.  It was delicious and refreshing and there was enough to quench his thirst.  Peter felt again exhausted and he lay down in the shade of the coconut palm and slept.  When he awoke it was night time.  His watch indicated he had slept ‘til 3:00 am.  There was a full moon and there was enough light to walk around.  He found some driftwood and gathered pieces for a raft which he constructed by lashing several pieces of driftwood together with the fibrous palm leaf spines.  He thought about his being lost and dying on the island when the coconuts were done, or not enough rainwater had accumulated.

Peter waited for the early dawn.  He floated his small raft and tried to ride it like a surf board.  He couldn’t get his balance and fell into the shallow water.  He found that it was best to put his chest down on the raft and kick his legs.  Heading for his shipwreck, he slowly paddled out to sea.  He was able to board and able to stand up and look around.  He spotted many little islands, plus the one on which he had slept.  One in particular looked bigger and more overgrown than all the others.  He dipped down below the deck into the sleeping quarters and he found a small sealed black box and a freezer chest with frozen food.  He floated it ahead of him and pushed off from the wreck on his little raft.  He headed toward the overgrown bigger island and put ashore with his chest of frozen food.  He beached his raft and pulled the chest toward the shade of a coconut tree.  This island had a gurgling spring of fresh water, cool and refreshing and he drank some down.  He opened a package of frozen beef and let it heat up in the sun.  It was chewy but very satisfying.  Carefully, he buried the little black box near the base of large coconut tree,  marked it with a palm leaf by tieing it around the tree trunk and smiled,  It was five o’clock.  He found a shady tree and went to sleep, exhausted.

About a week later, Peter made another trip to the wreck and succeeded in lifting the anchor up off the ocean floor.  He noticed he was stronger.  Besides the coconuts and red ants, he’d found some shell fish crawling in the shallow waters.  He also found a large tortoise laying eggs in the sand.  He let the tortoise be and then he ate an egg or two.  It made him nauseated but he figured the nutrients were worth.  He washed it down his throat with the fresh cold spring water.  The shell fish included clams and scallops which he swallowed whole as soon as he extracted the fleshy mushy part out of the shell.  Peter noticed that his swimming stroke was stronger and his energy and mood had much improved.  A growing feeling of optimism was welcome.  Towing his wreck with a rope, he managed to get his wreck to his new island and pull it up onto the beach.  He knew what he was looking for and found it.  It was a very sharp hunting knife.  He also found his tool box which contained a hammer and a small coping saw, amongst other treasure.  The radio was useless.  It had been sitting underwater.  Nevertheless, Peter cleaned it and put out the parts to dry in the sun.  Carefully he extracted his magnifying glass, an old-fashioned sexton, a set of geometry shapes in metal templates, a soaked pad of foolscap paper, his soaked log, a useless electronic ultrasound underwater device, a soaked radio and a soaked CD player with some old discs of his great uncle Sergei Rachmaninoff’s three piano concertos and a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring the “Ode to Joy,” along with Antonin Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony, “For the New World.”  Both were recorded by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Choir, under Jorj Solti, some years ago.  He set his soaked CD player with a 9 volt battery in the sun to dry.  His soaked satellite tracking system for locating his position was placed beside it in the sun, to dry.  He was pleased to find a powerful set of binoculars which just needed cleaning and drying to be operative.  He was very pleased to find his waterproof folder of the maps of the South Pacific Islands and the entire South Pacific Seascape.  He used the magnifying glass to find some unnamed islands where he thought he was located.  He’d need to do some work to find his exact location and to pinpoint exactly on which island he was surviving.

Exhausted from his excursion and recovery activities, Peter found a shady spot and fell asleep.  His gold and stainless steel, guaranteed waterproof to 7 fathoms underwater, Rolex had still been working.  He had made a mental note that it was his birthday today.  He had just celebrated his 50^th alone and on an isolated island somewhere in the South Pacific.  It was September 28, 2013.

Born in La Jolla, California, at Stanford’s University Hospital, Peter Ilyitch Rachmaninoff started life as the wealthy son of Vladimir and Sophia Rachmaninoff, both Professors of Music at the University.  It was September 28, 1963, eight weeks before JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  He grew up in a highly stimulating family of six children, five girls and one boy.  His family was quite uninhibited about nakedness.  His early memories at his 2^nd birthday celebration included a big chocolate cake and a barbeque in his own backyard where there was a spa and wading pool.  He had been attacked by his five naked sisters in the wading pool and was frightened by all the directed splashing.  He remembers that his naked parents were in the pool protecting him and laughing all the while.  He remembers taunting by the sisters: “What’s that you little brother?  What have you got between your legs?  Why does your little wee-wee shrink so small?  What happens to your little nuts when they crawl inside your tummy?  Are they scared to come on out and be counted with us girls, who have no nuts to hold us back?”  He remembers using his little hands to protect his private parts.  He remembers his parents and his little sisters laughing at his efforts to protect his private parts.  He remembers feeling all alone as the only little boy in his own backyard in a Biblical catastrophic threat of standing to be stoned to death by his own family.  This threat was part of his nightmares that he had from childhood, and still experienced when he was older and had more prominent private parts that made him very different than his naked sisters.  It made matters worse when he could see his father’s huge penis hanging down from his groin with a very large sac with very large balls.  He guessed that he would have a very large penis and sac of balls when he was older but this was not comforting when he was only 2 or 3 years old.  In his defense, his father would hold back his sisters with the threat that when his only son grew up, he would have a weapon that his sisters would never have.

The parents thought that he would feel better if there were other little boys in his wading pool to help him with his sisters.  They were right.  The three little boys from two next door neighbour’s families were very protective against his sisters.  He always felt better in the presence of his naked neighbour’s sons.  It meant his sisters could not so easily dominate.  Things changed a bit when he was 8 years old.  At his birthday party in his wading pool, the parents went inside to watch a Stanford football game.  There were eight naked girls and six naked boys that day.  One of the eleven year old boys was showing off his erection to the girls who taunted him but were strangely so interested in the way this particular boy could make his penis very small and soft, or very large and hard.  All the little girls, including Peter’s not so little sister who was sixteen, took their turns with the “magic penis,” playing with it and trying to make it obey their commands and demands.

Marilyn Rachmaninoff was 17 when she decided to teach her little ten year old brother about his penis and his balls and about her secret chambers that were now accessible.  Marilyn had started Junior College to study Pre-Nursing.  Frankly, she needed some live anatomy specimens to learn about men’s anatomy.  She’d been learning plenty of women’s anatomy with her younger sisters and was quite confident about it.  Also, she had some classmates who were happy to kiss her and finger her for her amusement and her edification.  She’s fooled around with some older boys and men but had never had a serious enough commitment to have intercourse.  She had had oral sex a lot of times in high school and in the college, San Mateo Junior College, specializing in getting students to the Universities.  Besides, Marilyn really loved her little brother and felt sympathy toward him when he was attacked by all her sisters.  She loved him in a romantic way and liked the fact that she would dominate in a relationship with him.   Peter loved Marilyn, too.  He had strong sexual feelings when he saw her and strong romantic feelings when she treated him with respect.

Marilyn was an excellent student and stood first in academics in her class and all the other activities in which she participated at College.  She was a champion at tennis and volleyball, basketball and fencing.  She saw to it that she always had the time to visit home in La Jolla or if she couldn’t travel because of some activity like some of her sports, she called the house and always asked to speak for Peter even for a moment to tell him that she loved him and she missed him.  Peter loved the visits and the phone calls.  Their parents were very active in the musical milieu of California and played in several orchestras around the state and out of state.  When Marilyn called home or came to visit, the parents weren’t aware that there was a serious relationship developing between two of their children.  None of her sisters seemed pay attention to what was happening.  They had their own activities and relationships with neighbour’s boys and boys at their respective schools.

Completely alone one Sunday in the month of January, Marilyn and Peter consummated their relationship.  Peter was already 11 and Marilyn was almost 19.  Marilyn’s ostensible purpose for the both of them to strip off all their clothes, was to demonstrate and learn anatomy and sexual physiology which Marilyn was studying.  She and Peter were very excited at the prospect of exploring their respective private parts, including Marilyn’s quite perfect breasts and Peters obviously maturing parts.  The Bose CD player was just starting the second piano concerto of Sergei Rachmaninoff,  The atmosphere was charged with sex and real romance.  Marilyn remarked, “Your balls are getting really big, my dear young man.  Have you noticed?”  “No,” replied the little brother.  “I see and feel them everyday and I haven’t notice any sudden change.”  “Please lie down on the bed and let me check them.”  Peter ad complied and Marilyn did a deep examination of Peter’s adult sized gonads.  The result was that Peter grew a strong and long erection.  “My darling Peter, your penis had sefinitely grown since last \i saw it, eh?”  Peter again repeated that his daily observations were not as dramatic as Marilyn described them.  But, he was real pleased with her complimentary evaluations.  “Don’t move, my darling little brother.  I want to show you something.”  Marilyn got on the bed and neatly sat on Peter’s pelvis while she directed his whole shaft to enter her and get it deep within her lubricated honeypot.  “See,” she said, “That’s really deep.  I can feel your throbbing head pushing on my uterus.  Can you feel it?”  Peter wiggled his pelvis to get a better feel for what Marilyn was describing.  He said, “I feel it, my sweet sister.  What’s next?”

Marilyn was already moaning and perspiring.  She didn’t say a word.  She ground her pelvis into Peter’s pelvis and she could feel his head getting bigger and more throbbing.  Peter felt it, too.  He clenched his eyes shut as the pleasure wave infused his pelvis and started to spread up to his head.  Marilyn began to squirt her juices on Peter’s curly pubic hair.  She had a very stimulating orgasm and pushed her pelvis even stronger into Peter’s groin.  Peter exploded and he screamed with pleasure as he deposited a large amount of hot stuff deep inside his older sister.  She felt the heat and had another wonderful orgasm, followed by three more before she calmed down.  Peter saw her relax and grabbed her breast and rubbed her nipples.  She began again to have a series of eight more orgasms and Peter smiled from ear to ear.  He felt, at last, a modicum of control and was pleasantly surprised as he felt his penis grow very hard again and reach her uterus with authority.  He wiggled and saw that Marilyn had clenched closed her eyes.  He poked as much as he was able and saw that Marilyn was again responding and she exploded with a big bang and had a dozen more explosions.  Peter felt he had his sister under his control until he started getting soft.  He made a squishing noise as he fell out of Marilyn who laughed and had her control again over her little brother with big ideas.  Peter started laughing and then he started crying with the joy of having had a great experience with the woman he adored.  Marilyn kissed his eyes and licked his tears.  She fell upon him and she held him tightly under her.  Finally, she rolled to his side and cuddled Peter like she would a child.  Peter felt protected and in love.  Marilyn felt protective and in love.  It had been a great lesson in anatomy and physiology for her, as well.  “Thank you, little brother!” she said with love.  “Thank YOU, my bigger sister and my hero mentor.  When can we do this again?  I feel so wonderful at this moment.  Do you feel that way, too?”  “Yes,” replied Marilyn.  She looked into his gorgeous eyes and kissed him gratefully.  He kissed her back.

For about an hour, the happy siblings lay in bed and dreamed of happiness together, forever.  Almost simultaneously, they said, “I think it’s time to do another lesson!”  Marilyn had fantasized a hundred times about a doggy thing.  She got on her hands and knees and stuck her derrière up high.  Peter got on both his knees and approached her pretty buttocks with his new erection.  He loved the view of her beautiful private parts between her upper thighs.  He also loved the view of her great breasts and tiny pinkish nipples.  He fulfilled her fantasy in spades. He and she lost count of all her wonderful orgasms before he couldn’t stop himself and just exploded, screamed and lost all track of time and space.  He and she saw sparkling, coloured stars for many moments as they both exploded finally.  He reached around her chest and held her breasts with great excitement for them both.

Peter woke with a huge erection which he admired before he helped himself to get some pleasure on the sand.  He shot an arc of semen onto a tree trunk and watched it slide to the sand.  A colony of large red ants attacked it with élan.  He grabbed a scoop of everything and savoured it, deliciously.  “Oh my darling, Marilyn, where art thou sweetheart?  Please think of me and come and rescue me!”

Now, 57, and a Head Nurse in the Gynecology Service of the Stanford University Hospital, Marilyn was thinking that she would like to see her childhood lover, once again.  She and he had not had contact since the funeral of both their parents who had lost their lives in a freak train accident travelling between gigs from Los Angeles to San Francisco.  The Rachmaninoff’s had joined the San Francisco Symphony directed by Michael Tillson Thomas some years ago as percussionists, composers and arrangers.  The Rachmaninoff name was still quite famous and the couple was featured many times by Thomas who would tell stories of his intimate knowledge of the family members.  Marilyn was the only sister to become a nurse.  Her other female siblings all had studied music and were now musicians with various California organizations including the famous Quarttetto Rachmaninoffiano.

Marilyn had been married twice, both times to doctors; both divorces had been amicable and fair.  Her only pregnancy resulted in a spontaneous miscarriage; it would have been Peter’s only son, had she informed him.  She yearned to be with Peter.  In both her marriges, she yelled out “Peter!” in her sleep, a definite factor in her divorces.  Peter had become an EE engineer and MBA.  He invented a music system that was outstanding and he built a successful company to build it and sell it, very profitably.  Audiophiles claimed it was a prefect system and it sold around the world.  Finally, he acceded to business pressures to relocate his main manufacturing facility in China and still managed to maintain its high quality and high price.  Peter had sold the company to a Chinese conglomerate and pocketed a billion dollars.  He was only 40 at the time and decided to retire.  He took up sailing and would often go on voyages for months without a contact from his siblings.  He yearned to be with Marilyn and got his wish just twice, just after both of Marilyn’s divorces.  Their re-unions were intense.  On both occasions, they flew separately to a secluded spa in Arizona, where they renewed their romance with love and enthusiasm.  These rendezvous were kept secret from their parents and their siblings.  Marilyn avoided pregnancies by having a tubal ligation during her first marriage.  Her menopause occurred just recently when she was 65.  Surrepticiously, she tried to contact Peter.  One of her sisters said he was somewhere in the South Pacific for an indefinite time.  Another sister confirmed this.  Her yearning was so strong, she called the coast guard with the story that the family was having a medical emergency and he needed to be contacted.  They replied that they had no idea where he might be, but if he contact them they would give him the message.  She called the coast guard back and was re-assured that there had been no distress calls or electronic signals of distress that were emitted by equipment that many sailors used.

Despite his knowledge and expertise in the field of electronics, Peter had been unable to get any of his radio gear or signal emitters to work.  Even the flares and flare gun had been damaged beyond repair.  The only thing he could manage was the classical and romantic message in a bottle which he launched a dozen times when his Rolex indicated it was the end of the month.

September 28, 2014 arrived.  Peter celebrated his birthday by himself.  He looked a lot like a shaggy Santa Claus.  He had no mirror but the surface of his pool was sometimes smooth enough to see his ancient-looking image.  His sharp knife was what he used to keep his moustache from forever getting in his mouth and teeth.  He’d given up on his radio months ago but on the occasion of his birthday, he decided to give it one more try.  He was surprised to be able to receive and send a simple signal, he believed and started sending SOS in Morse code.  He was never sure how strong the signal was.  He kept searching the horizon and spotted a US Coast Cutter with his binoculars.  His heart beat furiously as he saw the ship approach his island.  They hailed him with Pinafore flags when he was in range and sent up several flares to announce their presence.  Marilyn was contacted to say they think they found her brother.  They send another message from Peter simply saying, “I love you Marilyn.  I’ll see you soon!”

For the first time in over a year, Peter had a steak and lobster dinner rather than red ants and turtle‘s eggs, coconut milk and the occasional seafood he caught in the shallow waters near the shore of his island.  He had lost a lot of weight but was muscular and fit, brown and bearded.  His sailor’s clothes were torn and he would have made a good advertisement for the book he would be writing.  Many photographs were made by his rescuers; he was promised copies of them all.  He knew he smelt very gamy but he was so happy to be rescued, he didn’t mind it.  The first hot shower he had taken in a year made him felt like he was in Heaven.  And, he could not help fantacizeing about his upcoming re-union with his sister, Marilyn.

And, Marilyn could not stop fantasizing about her upcoming re-union with her brother, Peter.  She knew she couldn’t lose a hundred pounds in just a few days, so she didn’t try.  She bought herself a new black dress and worried about her flat chest resulting from a double mastectomy for cancer.  She also tried not to think about the swelling in her arms and ankles that had resulted from lymphedema due to metastatic cancer in the lymph nodes, everywhere.  She no longer had any hair of her own and wore a glamourous wig made of human, donated hair.

Peter had access to the telephones and made a phone call to San Francisco.  He spoke to Daniel Donaldson, a neighbour’s son with whom he shared strong feelings since the days of the wading pool and his taunting by his sisters.  For the last twenty years, he and Daniel had been room-mates and lovers.  They had shared many precious moments, including the time they discovered that Daniel and he both had AIDS, and the chemotherapy that had many side effects, including hormonal imbalances and electrolyte disturbances.  The medics aboard the US Coastguard cutter had the medications waiting for him so that he could restart after one full year of not receiving any therapy.  The barber of the crew used his clipper to trim his hair, moustaches and his beard, instead of shaving all of it off.  The barber was well aware of avoiding bloodshed, so he didn’t use a regular razor at any time on Peter.  Peter Rachmaninoff always liked a beard but both Daniel and his sister, Marilyn, detested it.  Now he looked like the handsome Robert DiNero, much better prepared to rejoin his past romantic involvements.  He felt obligated to see Marilyn first before he re-joined Daniel in their expensive, luxurious condominium in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco.

As Peter and the coast Guard cutter approached San Diego, California, he fantasized frequently about his island paradise retreat and wondered if he could go back, some day and live alone, forever with his ants and coconuts.  He thought that he could accomplish his escape by the time he reached his next birthday, his 52^nd, September 28, 2015.

THE END

© izzy sommers, md

Welland, Canada

October 5, 2013