Seventies

She started with his cousin.

He and his cousin shared a birthday, so logically they shared a sweet sixteen party. Unlike him, the cousin wasn't touted to have a future-million-dollar brilliance. The cousins looked astonishingly alike. However, where his cousin sported his looks like an effortlessly suave suit, Pete was awkward wearing his looks like super-starchy clothes. But. Pete's Chiney mother was proud of her protege who'd always been an undeniably gifted child. His father, a stern black man, was conspicuously quiet on the topic of his bright son.

Fifteen-year-old Fawn flirted her best PamGrier-esque hairdo to the birthday party, and gave herself the gift of Pete, throwing the cousin back into the sea -- she really wasn't fond of small-fry prospects.

Pete was Fawn's new "settle." Problem was, unlike the cousin, Pete could be counted on to do things. Things like wearing a Manley-type bush jacket and flood-water-high gaberdine pants with buckle shoes outshone only by his greased-flat hair, to a Plus-X bash where everyone else wore bell-bottoms, trendy platform shoes, and fluffy afro. Still, she took his Sunday-best disco gear in stride; after all, in any number of years, when he was more cashy than all the crowd, who'd get the last laugh? Besides, she was trying to rekindle the cousin's interest on the side.

Pete's family was unaware of what was happening. Only the helper heard the goings-on in the heretofore virginal Pete's room whenever his parents were out. And the helper knew better than to be the bearer of bad news to her employers. She did however tell Fawn of Pete's illness that had started when his closest brother drowned a few years before. Pete was fine as long as he took his meds, she said, but Fawn shouldn't toy with his emotions. "Him can't tek it," the helper told her, "Him can't tek it." The cousin confirmed the helper's assertion.

Fawn was abased.

But worse, Fawn was pregnant.