The Misbegotten
Painful Revelations - Summer 2018

A mild shove against my shoulder woke me. I opened my eyes and found myself lookinginto Tirza’s. I sat up and glancedaround trying to get my bearings, realizing I was sleeping at the foot of mybed.

The girls were a tangle of arms and legs and bodies atits’ head.

I wondered who'd tossed from my spot, but shrugged offthe question. Maybe I got up to take apiss and one of them took my spot. Itdidn’t matter. It wasn’t important.

Tirza put a forefinger to her lips, the ubiquitoussignal to be quiet and held out her hand.

I took it and let her help me to my feet without asound.

She tugged at me once I was upright.

I noticed at once, she was leading me away from thebed and toward the bathroom.

She didn’t let go of my hand. It should’ve felt as hard as rock, but, tome, it felt as it always had.

After all the fighting, the vows of never again, itdid seem strange to feel something as familiar as her touch once again. As always, my hand swallowed hers, but Iremembered how to hold her without hurting her. I positioned her tiny fingertips within the crease of flesh at the endof my palm, the beginning of my fingers.

She dug-in her nails like she used to when somethingas simple as holding hands wasn’t such a big deal.

My vision was still on our conjoined extremities whenshe led me into the smaller room. It wasbizarre how our hands would know where to go, what to do, while our minds hadgrown so far apart. What was once indistinguishablewas vastly different now.

At one time,I thought in my deepest of hearts, we would marry. Tirza, I loved you that much.

But how wouldthat have worked with Katie on the side as your mistress? That would’ve gone over real well with thefamily. I’m so sure.

With Tirza, there was nothing but confusion.

“Close the door, Estefan,” she commanded. Her tone was level. She let of me, so she could stand near thelight switch.

I did and the light came on once the door latchengaged.

She moved to sit on the toilet.

I sat opposite her, on the edge of the bathtub.

She ran her fingers halfway through her hair, and thenstopped once they came to the top of her skull. She made claws of her fingers. For three, maybe four seconds, she massaged the skin of her scalp withuntold aggression. Just as quick, shepulled them from her head, staring at me through a waterfall of hair. Her chest filled and unfilled with fitfulbreaths.

“Jeez, Tirza, what’s wrong? Are you ok?” I asked. She was starting to freak me out. She was beginning to look like that crazyJapanese ghost from The Grudge¹. Though it was an oldermovie, it still scared the crap out of me.

“You incense me, Estefan, that’s the problem,” sheanswered. She gathered her hair, whippingback over her head, her eyes accusatory daggers.

I put both of my hands in front of me insupplication. “Teezee, have I done anythingto make you mad?” It astonished me tosee her gaze intensify. “And if have,I’m sorry, ok!” Unaccustomed to seeingTirza gaze at me like I was better off dead, I spoke like I was regurgitating.

“That’s the problem,” she said, but it only made memore confused.

I spread my hands wide. “I don’t understand what you are trying totell me.”

“Of course you don’t, Estefan. Why would you when you’re up to your neck in pussy! Why would you take the time to think abouthow someone else might be feeling?” Shehad slipped to the edge of the toilet seat, pointing a little finger in mydirection. Though it was small, itseemed like a sword slicing through the air.

Then her point began to register. “Tirza, you told me, pretty emphatic I mightadd that you and I would never be ‘together’ that way. Those were your words, and I agreed tothem. We made a pact. We created common ground between us. I thought everything was cool between us and nowyou’re telling me different? What’sgoing on, I don’t understand.”

She glared at me like a statue for two heartbeats,maybe three. A single tear fell from herleft eye and splashed onto her exposed knee.

In my ears, it sounded as loud as a thousand poundJ-DAM² detonating below ground.

Her face began to flush pink as the cords in her neckbegan to strain. “I can’t turn it off,”she uttered. All at once, she was like adeflating balloon. She wrapped and foldedonto herself as if she was admitting some unimaginable shame.

For some strange, unexplainable reason that pissed meoff. A million, million flashes ofthought and emotion came ripping through my consciousness. In the blink of an eye, I was there again. “And you think it was easy for me to turn it off? Are you fucking kidding me?

“I said one errant name. I made one mistake and you fucking threw allthat we had away in less than a millisecond. Everything! You tossed it allaside like it didn’t mean shit to you, Tirza!

“I endured your dip-shit father. I made friends with your adorablesister. I went to Church with you whenyou damn well know I didn’t believe in that shit. I went on retreats. I gave speeches. I volunteered. I did everything you asked of me. And because I said my cousin’s name ONCE… youthrew me aside like a used tampon!” Iwas breathless, and couldn’t have said more even if I tried.

She was breathing as heavy as I was, though she hadn’tsaid a word. “You said her name, whileyou were cuming inside of me. You archedyour back. You threw you headbackward. You thrusted your dick as faras you could inside of me, and you came… and I came… and you said her name! Right at the moment when I was bringing youto the point of your orgasm, you said hername. Right when I was giving my body to you, you said her name. I was fuckingyou, Estefan!

“My parents taught me, over my entire life, to replace ahusband, to wait to have sex, and then – and only then – to make babies. Yet, there I was fucking! I wasn’t trying tomake a baby. You and I weren’tmarried. We were fucking!

“And you know what? You know what makes it all the more worse?” She paused to catch her breath.

I didn’t move.

“I was enjoying it! I liked fucking you, because you were so good at it. Everything you did to me was wonderful. You made me want to question myself and myupbringing. You made me want to dothings for myself. You made me strongenough to want to stand on my own two feet. You made me want to be my own person and not someone who’s constantlyspoon-fed by her parents.

“Don’t you get what I’m trying to say?” She was distraught now, almost pleading forme to understand, but there was no need.

I knewexactly what she meant.

“And then you said her name.”

I felt myself slump to the floor. The edge of the bathtub was no longer sturdyenough to hold me and not let me fall. The whole room rumbled as my weight hit the floor. “I have no defense, Teezee. I have always loved her. When she was first out of diapers and couldwalk normal, she was captivating to me.

“But that doesn’t take away from what we had back then. Katie was taboo. You weren’t. Katie was a dream. You were, andcould’ve been, my future. Never in mywildest imagination did I ever think circumstances would be perfect enough toallow Katie and me to be together. I wasready to let all those earlier - younger - feelings go, because I believed inus.

“But, I made a mistake. Ok, Tirza, I admit it. I made a mistake.” Now, tears were threatening to fall down mycheeks. Sonofabitch! “I regretsaying it, and not because being with Ramona was been bad or being with Katieis either. I regret it, because of whatit did to the two of us. We had beenfriends so long before we finally got together. And when we did, when we became boyfriend and girlfriend, it just grewbetter day after day, week after week, month after month. I would’ve done anything for you, anythingyou asked.

“Finding it all gone, so fast, with such profound brutality,it tore a hole in me I have been trying to fill ever since.” I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop thetears. I was not going to cry in front of her. I’d be damned first. “I gotlucky, though,” I went on looking up at her.

She was still on the toilets’ edge, her kneestouching, her ankles spread wide, making her look pigeon-toed.

“I found Ramona and she made things easier. She made things seem less raw, less currentand more past tense. I needed that more than anything at the time.” I stopped, because I had to. Otherwise, I would’ve broken down. I didn’t want to do that.

A long, thoughtful silence fell between us. All I could hear was her breathing and myheart thumping in my chest, making my ears ring.

“I was stupid, Estefan.”

I brought my head up to gaze at her once again.

“I didn’t give you a chance to explain yourself or thesituation. I didn’t do anything, but runaway. I should’ve at least tried.” She was wringing her hands atop her knees.

“Twenty-twenty is a bitch, huh?” I joked, trying tolighten the mood.

Her face was stricken, the jibe went unnoticed. She peered at me in earnest.

I could tell there was more she wanted to say, butsomething was holding her back. Herpride or maybe some inner fear, or both were preventing her. I was struggling to distinguish the feelingsshe wore in plain sight upon her visage.

“Well, at least, we can still be friends, right?” Iasked, hopeful something good would come of this wretched conversation.

She stood in a rush.

The sudden movement took me aback, and I raised myselffrom the floor to the edge of the bathtub like before. My eyes searched her face, her demeanor, theway she stood, trying to comprehend what she was feeling.

She stared right at me, all sense of uncertainty andself-consciousness gone. “No, we can’t,Eff. We cannot be friends because, nomatter how many times I tell myself otherwise, I’m still in love with you. And it fuckinghurts so much!!!

“I can forgive you for being with your cousin, but Ican’t, if you and I are intimate. Andyet, I love you so much, I almost don’t care. It’s so confusing. I don’t knowwhat to do!” She let go then, staggeringagainst the counter, crying hard. Still,she tried with every ounce of strength she had within her not to make noise.

I bounded toward her, supporting her by an elbow,unsure if she was going to collapse or not.

She didn’t shy away from my touch. She stayed her ground for a moment or twobefore she turned into me and crushed me in a ferocious hug. “I love you, damn it!” she mumbled against mybare chest. “I want you so bad. I don’t know what to do, because every single one of those girls outthere loves you too. It’s tearing meapart.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do, Estefan? I wasn’t raised this way. I’m not supposed to share a man with anotherwoman and be okay with it.” She sniffledthrough her tears. “And here I replace myselfentertaining the idea of sharing you with fourother women! What the fuck is wrong withme? Why am I so fucked up in myhead? Why can’t I just walk away and sayyou’re a sick bastard for fucking your firstcousin, and let it lie? Why can’t I dothat? Why can’t I just recant myemotions and label you destined for hell? It would be sooo much easier. Icould pound my Bible and disavow you and yours for all time. It’s not like many people wouldn’t disagreewith me. Most of your own familywould. Why can’t I do that? Why!” She shuddered in my arms as though she was in sub-zerotemperatures. Her entire body shook tothe marrow.

Then, she did the bravest thing I had ever seen herdo.

She went on. “Theanswer is so simple, so agonizing, it’s vexing. It makes me seethe with rage, because I don’t want things to be thisway. But, it doesn’t matter what I wantor think. It’s what I feel that takes the cake. It hasthe final say and I am powerless against it.

“I love you so much. I’m willing to damn myself in the face of the church I love almost asmuch. But, nothing means more to me thanyou.” She looked up at me; her gaze wasincredible, intense, like peering into the crushing void of a singularity. She drew me so fast, with such pugnacity, itwas painful. “I have no family. I have no home. All I have is you. What am I going to do?”

“I told you before I will never leave you until youwant me to.” I reminded her of my vow.

“I don’t want you to go,” she murmured. She made certain I believed her by brushingher lips against my chest.

“Good.”

“But,” she began, but her throat constricted and shewas unable to speak for a few seconds. “But, h-how am I going to deal with allthose girls? They love you too. They all do. I can see it. I don’t even needRamona’s Mutation to know it for truth. How am I going to allow this to happen between you and me, and yet, notget jealous when one of them kisses you or wants to be intimate with you andyou go off together? How am I supposedto deal with that when I don’t even know Sandy or Leda?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“I don’t! Howthey manage to do what they do and not get mad or jealous or feel left out is acomplete mystery to me,” I said. I heldher by either side of the head to kiss her upon the forehead.

“Don’t do that,” she warned.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I replied at once, frozen in hergrasp.

Her voice remained stern. “Don’t ever kiss me like I’m yoursister. If you want to kiss me, kiss meon the lips or don’t kiss me at all.”

I couldn’t believe how mad she was, but then…what? Had she just -?

She had!

I let the tension flow from me, relieved.

“Are you sure?”

“If there is one thing, in this whole fucked up world,I can be sure about, it is this,” she murmured, pulling me.

I bent down and kissed her on the lips, because mymama didn’t raise no fool. I was notgoing to let the opportunity pass. Istill loved Tirza and I wasn’t going to let her slip away from me again. Not a chance.

Funny how I didn’t even realize the number of girlswilling to share me had just increased to five.

Fucking Mona!

{ ¹The Grudge:a 2004 American/Japanese supernatural horror film, and the first installment in the American horrorfilm series of the same name. }

{ ²J-DAM: acronym for Joint Direct Attack Munition; is a guidance kit that converts unguidedbombs, or "dumb bombs"into all-weather "smart" munitions. }