The Misbegotten

[He sinks back into the mire of the past.]

It was way after dinner. After, Katie and I had helped my mother clean up kitchen. After, we tarried about with my siblings and my parents for a time.

Now, Katie, my step-sister Flavia, my brother Johan and I were striding up to the Loft. We were going to watch a movie my mother said was too violent for the younger kids to see.

I had frowned at her, because I didn’t think The Hills Have Eyes VI was all that violent. But it wasn’t my place to decide the right time for a kid to see someone decapitated. That was a parents’ job, not mine.

Therefore, us four, older kids marched with happy feet up to my room.

I flicked on my 37-inch plasma, popped in the High density Blu-Ray.

We made ourselves comfortable wherever there was room. Katie and I had scooted toward the headboard and sat leaning against my pillows. My long-legged stepsister stretched out lengthwise across the foot of the bed. My brother, who had brought his lounge pillow, was resting upon it at the foot of the bed. He watched the flat screen from a prone position with the eyes of a raptor.

It wasn’t long after the introduction of the main characters and the gratuitous nude scene when Katie yawned. This preceded the sweaty, over-edited sex montage that made Katie squirm at my side.

At first, I thought it had made her a little hot and bothered. But, when I glanced over at her, I knew the movie was boring her. “What’s wrong, Kat?” I wondered, pinching her on the thigh.

She slapped my hand, giving me a warning glare. She mouthed that I wasn’t allowed to touch her like that in front of others.

I nodded and did it again, which made her mad.

She poked me in my side and made me jump though I did not want to.

I tickled her back and made her wiggle and grunt as she tried not to laugh out loud.

My sister turned to look at us for a few seconds, and then rolled her eyes. Flavia returned her attention to the movie, flipping her long auburn hair over her shoulder as she did so.

“Stop!” Katie whispered, hoarse.

I stopped, but left one of my hands on her thigh, just above the knee.

She glanced at it and then grabbed a hold of it and squeezed.

My cell phone chimed, disturbing the lot of us. It was a text by the sound of the alert, so I leaned over to have a look at it on the nightstand.

It was Ramona. “Anything from Jacob yet? FYI, everything for tonight is cool… ;)”

I showed it to Katie.

She smiled and rubbed her hands together with excitement. The three of us had made big plans for later that night. We were eager to see if we had the guts to fulfill them.

I texted her back with Katie leaning on my shoulder, watching as my fingers danced over the surface of my phone. “Nothing yet! It’ll probably take a few days. You still gonna be here at midnight?”

“You sure you’re ready for this?” I asked my cousin. I wanted to make sure she was one hundred percent sure. This was the sort of thing that could scar a person for life, if they hadn’t thought it through with proper care. I needed to know the Katie sitting next to me right then would be the same Katie I would wake beside in the morning.

“Eff, I wanted this last summer remember,” she began. Then she lowered her voice and spoke into my ear. “But, Flavia interrupted…”

I whispered back. “Were you going to give my head that day? Tell me the truth.”

“Of course,” she answered with an affirming nod of her head.

“I knew it!” I replied, voice husky, louder than I wanted.

“Hey, guys! Will you be quiet or go somewhere else. I’m trying to watch this,” bellowed my aggravated sister. She looked at us with distain in her glare before she returned her attention back to the movie.

On the screen, there was a horribly deformed man chasing a diminutive, effeminate man through a maze of tunnels. He was yelling something about butthole love.

I stared the back of her head for a bit, wondering if she might’ve put 2-and-2 together. Maybe she was acting like an ass because she didn’t approve. Would she tell her father? I hoped not, if this was the case.

Then my cell vibrated and chimed again. I gazed down at the text message – “12 midnight sharp, baby doll! See you soon!”

I edged myself toward the edge of the bed, pulling Katie with me.

She came willing, as pliant as ever.

I led her toward her bed on the other side of the room. I leaned toward her and said, “Ramona is good to go, so I guess we’ll see what happens.”

“Just be ready, Eff, because I sooo want this to happen. I don’t want you to get all weirded out.” She leaned back into me.

We wove our way across the rest of the room toward where she should've been sleeping, but hadn’t yet.

I sat on the edge of her bed, and she followed suit. “You sure, Kat?” I asked. On purpose, I spoke under the 7.1 digital surround sound of the Blu-Ray audio system playing the movie. I wanted to make sure she was one hundred percent open. What the three of us had discussed whenever Jacob had walked out of the room earlier that day had to be clear.

This was after we had made our way back to the Loft. After, I had calmed down over the news of Lisa’s disappearance. I’d asked Jacob to ask around among his more nefarious acquaintances (about which he said he would). We had gone back to what we’d been doing before the interruption. The girls and I lounged on the bed, where I told Katie all about Lisa with Ramona listening.

Meanwhile, Jacob continued to roll a few joints from his score of the marijuana.

When I had finished answering all Katie’s questions about the unfortunate young teen, I had got up from the bed. I sauntered over to ask Jacob if he would roll a few for us from our stash.

He smiled, broad and sly, saying he would. He winked at me, raising his eyebrows at Ramona. He was thinking I was planning a little fuckfest with the girl later on that night.

I had let him think whatever he wanted; keeping him off the real trail was the key at this point. I went over to the satellite radio receiver and turned it on to the classic rock station. At once, some old jams from way back in the heyday of Heavy Metal¹ began to blare. We all liked to “rock out” now and again, even though the era was long, long gone.

When I returned to the bed, I found the girls deep in conversation. I let them go on for a time when it dawned on me they were discussing sex. Confusion struck me in an instant.

“What’re you guys talking about?” I had asked.

Ramona had been talking. She stopped and said as a matter of fact, “Our Katie has made a request.”

I jerked my head back, chin to chest. “Oh, and what is that?” I thought Ramona was messing around.

“She has asked me, quite polite and with respect, if she could make love to you tonight.”

Sixteen words that made my lower jaw drop to the carpeted floor were all it took. Holy fuck, Katie wasn’t messing around!

“Really?” I asked, cringing. I knew I had sounded like I’d just entered puberty, complete with an ever-breaking voice box. I looked from one of them to the other, my eyes as wide as they could go.

Both of the teenage girls nodded. Ramona, grave. Katie, demure, which was so not like her. It was a complete farce.

“A-and what did you say, Mona?” My voice was mouse-sized, quavering. It was like I was stuck in a snowstorm freezing off my ass.

Ramona seemed to wait as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell me or not. Yet, she began to speak before she felt ready to make a decision. “We laid down a ground rule.” She perched herself higher on her elbows as I got down on mine. We were just about level with one another. This allowed her to speak in a lower tone. “We both agreed that until we know what all this-.” She gestured with her hand, moving it in a circular fashion, indicating the three of us. She swallowed, forging on. “Until we know what this is about, we can only engage in the “act” when the three of us are together. No pairing off into two’s, which includes a pairing of Katie and me as well. This way no one gets jealous or feels left out. If we want to do something, all we have to ask it of all three of us, so it’s fair.”

“Wow, the three of us, really? I thought you girls weren’t sure about girl-on-girl and all?” I had still sounded like a dweeb. This was happening so fast. Despite the topic involving the most serious part of our trilateral relationship, the girls were moving at breakneck speed.

“We don’t have to go down on each other just because we’re naked and with you. Right, Katie?” My girlfriend glanced over at my cousin.

Katie had been unmoving up to this point her eyes riveted on me. She shook in the slightest, breaking her train of thought. “Right…” She chanced a glance at Ramona. “But, for tonight, Ramona has agreed. Since I haven’t been with you before and she has many times, she will only watch. We have decided for tonight I can have you all to myself. It will also be our ‘special’ first time.”

The rest had been a blur of planning and scheming. Ramona spent most of it trying to figure out how she was going to sneak out of her mother’s apartment and steal back to my place. Both of them tried to figure out a good time, a late hour, but not too late. They’d gone on and on.

I had just listened and piped in now and again. My mind kept drifting on its’ own, wondering what it would be like finally to see Katie without any clothes. What would she look like? What would she feel like? I kept seeing her soft, pale skin contrasting with the darker skin on the back of my hand. I could see the difference between them as ran my palms over her body, as I felt her perky breasts, as I massaged her round ass cheeks. What would she feel like on the inside? What would she smell like? What would she taste like? What positions would she want? Was she good at giving head? Did she swallow? Or would she prefer I came inside her? Would she tell me she loved me when she came…?

I can tell you, there were a thousand, thousand more questions and wonderings of that nature. More and more came to mind with each passing moment. Every time, I glanced her way, Katie would catch me in the act, but I wouldn’t look away.

We would stare into each other for a second or two.

I could see there were just as many questions behind her orbs as there were behind mine. Her mind was racing too. Her glances were quick and furtive. Her tongue kept gliding over her thin, pink lips. I watched every time, asking myself over and over. What would it be like to make love to her after so long?

In the present, Katie spoke. “I’m sure, Effy. I have wanted you that way for more than three years now. Ever since I lost my virginity, I realized I had wanted it to be you instead of my boyfriend. I wanted you to be the one to take my innocence.

“I was so disappointed in myself, in so many ways. I think I just stopped caring.” Her eyes were far away. “What kind of freak wants her first cousin to deflower her, right? I just couldn’t come to terms with it back then, but… Well, you never left my mind or my heart. Every time I tried to push you away with another boy or distract myself with some of the drugs my parents were bringing home, you came back.

“And,” she went on, “last summer when I finally got to see your “stuff”, I was like in a trance. I wanted it so bad – in my mind, in my heart and in my pussy. I wanted it to rub away all the bad things I had done to myself from the inside out. I wanted your kiss to overlay everything I had done with my mouth. I wanted your hands to make my body clean and pure once again. I knew then it should've been you. I knew it and still I fought.

“Then things got so bad at home. My mom and dad were fucking everyone else’s mom and dad in the entire god damned city. Caroline was acting like a bitch to everyone. Junior began to think he was better than everyone else. Marissa was so lost to me. All she ever did was ignore us – every one of us. She was always into her own damned thing. Little James was always locked in his room, playing video games as he called it. But that was crap too! What sort of video games involve women moaning like their getting fucked hard. Video games my ass! My little brother - at thirteen - was already addicted to porn. He was jerking off like six or seven times a day. I just had it. I had to get of there, Estefan. I had to come here and be with you, forever, if it were possible.”

I raised my eyebrows at that.

She understood the cast of my visage and did not skip a beat. “Oh yeah, Eff, I’m not going back. I’m gonna make a deal with my aunt. I will promise her. I will stay out of trouble, get good grades. If she can convince my mom to enroll me in your school, I will stay here. I will vow, the moment I screw up she can send my back to Oklahoma City. Next day air, if she chooses to do so. I’m gonna do it, Estefan, for my own sanity and wellbeing. I gonna stay here and be your girl-in-secret, and Ramona’s twin. We will never be apart again.” She stopped and placed her hand on mine. It was the one I was using for support while I sat on her bed. “Don’t get melodramatic, but I’m gonna spill my guts, ok?” She asked.

I nodded with a lame, half-smile on my face.

“If I could, Eff, I would marry you.”

My eyes bulged. I my throat constricted, stealing my ability to talk.

She went on. “But it’s illegal, so I will tell you this… Tonight with my heart and soul, and with my body, I will pledge myself to you. I will to be true to my word and try everything in my power to make it. This way I will never leave your side.” She fingered bedspread for a few seconds, then peered at me through her fallen hair. “Does it sound like I am ready for this?”

I knew she saw what the gravity of her words had done to me. They had reduced me to a pitiful husk before her. I hadn’t believed, even in my wildest dreams, she would be thinking that far ahead. I had no idea she would be willing to change her entire life, even her way of living it, for me. But then again, what seventeen-year-old boy thinks of such things? Only females think that far ahead at that age. We guys are too busy trying to get something warm and wiggly in our beds. Pah, think ahead, my ass!

From another perspective though, I hadn’t known that things at my aunt’s house had deteriorated to such a degree. I was unaware her parents had pushed her against a wall with such ferocity. If she hadn’t squirmed out of the way, she might’ve died inside. I hadn’t known how close she had come to losing herself. The enormity of the choices she had made by force were astounding. I was in awe of the clarity and maturity of her decisions, even though some of them might’ve looked quite bad. Yet, to me they weren’t. Once one delved below the surface and saw the icky muck her parents had dumped on her. She was so much more of a woman than I was a man.

Did she want to marry me for real?

“Looks like you’re more ready than I am, ‘Cuz, to tell you the truth,” I replied with a wry smile.

She made the bed shake with bubbling merriment, while she traced one of my knuckles with her finger.

{ ¹Heavy Metal: a genre of rock music developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s; with roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands creating heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. }