My Melissa

Book excerpt: George and Arthur are identical twins, both are in college and living in late 1930s America. They come from a rich upper class Baltimore family. Their father had been taking the family on summer vacations to Miami Beach. Finding Miami Beach to be too crowded, the father changes directions and takes the family to a remote and less known vacation resort in South Carolina. There the boys meet and fall head over rich privileged heels in love with a beautiful local girl who works as a cleaning girl who cleans the rental vacation cottages. When they return the next year they start up a full blown love and sexual affair with the girl, Melissa. The girl falls in love with them; both of them. Both brothers want to marry the girl. The situation lead to quite a rivalry between the two brothers which could lead to a serious break between them in the family. The problem is that Melissa said she wants to marry BOTH men. She says that she loves them both equally and cannot choose between them. In the end she refuses to choose between them saying that if they will not agree to a three-way marriage she will live with them both in a menage-a-twa arrangement anywhere. While that could be worked out in backwoods mountain country, it would be totally unacceptable in straight laced conservative Baltimore Brahmin society. The boys do not want to leave their family home and situation. By a series of events that include a savage barroom between the brothers and locals over the girl, a fight in which one of the brothers seriously mutilates a knife welding redneck thug, facing possible serious danger from angry locals who falsely blame the girl for provoking the fight, the girl comes home with the boys to live with them as a cleaning girl in the family home in Baltimore, much to the chagrin of the boys straight laced mother. At home behind closed doors, the boys carry on in secret the affair they started in Carolina. At their sister's wedding reception both of the brothers propose to the girl with the one she does not choose agreeing to drop out of the picture. Sill as much of a stubborn hillbilly girl as she was when they first met her, Melissa again refuses to choose between them. The issue unresolved as ever, the affair otherwise continues in secret at the family house. The years roll on, Melissa marries out of necessity, but which one did she choose? Find out how this convoluted love affair ends.