The Misbegotten

At 6 o’clock on the dot, later that morning, I awoke to the blaring tones of the alarm on my cell phone. They were the familiar beats and rhythms of an old school song everyone used to bump to when I was only two years old:

“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

“Go shorty, it’s yo birfday,

“We gonna party like it’s yo birfday,

“We gonna sip Bacardi like it’s yo birfday,

“And you know we don’t give a fuck, cuz that’s yo birfday…”

It was an old song, true. The fact I let it play for about half a minute before turning it off was a testament to the talent of the rapper who had named himself after half a dollar’s worth of change.

I put the phone back on the nightstand and twisted on the bed, surveying the entire length of the Loft.

Ramona was sitting back against the headboard of my bed, rubbing at her eyes. Next, she fidgeted with her hair, her luscious tits about to flop out of her top. The silken garment had skewed downward and to the right during her sleep.

Katie was stretching, languorous, on the far bed like she always did in the morning, and then rolled over so she faced me. Our eyes met and she blew me a kiss, which I returned. She looked scrumptious laid out on that bed, naked underneath her nightclothes, rested and ready.

At least to me, she looked ready. Her smoky eyes gave her away. The longer I stared. The more she grinned until her entire visage was sparkling with the naughty thoughts crossing her mind. Naughty thoughts she knew I was reading from across the room. Come here, Estefan. Come here and fuck me as hard and for as long as you want.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Tirza walk through the portal of the bathroom and out of sight. I knew she was going to wash-up. She had always been one to brush her teeth and wash her face the moment she awoke. She had some sort of bad breath/gooey-eyed phobia. Thus, it drove her to rid herself of the residue of sleep at the earliest opportunity. Some things never change. She hasn’t. It’s the same thing with my tine ex-girlfriend.

“It’s gotta be a little weird for you, huh Steve?” commented Ramona with a question. She gazed at me through her eyebrows, arms crossed over her breasts. She had put in their proper place beneath her sexy camisole.

“What’s that, my dear?” I asked, ignoring her use of my American name. I wasn’t in the mood for her petty jealousies, coming and going in the blink of an eye.

“Seeing her here in your room this early in the morning, must bring back a flood of memories.” She trailed off as if she were trying to tempt me to go there.

Like I said, I didn’t want to waste time bandying stupid shit with her after everything we’d gone through the day before. Sometimes my girlfriend’s comments just needed marginalization. “Yeah, my love, it does,” was all I said as I crossed the room. I walked past the half-closed bathroom door and came up to my cousin.

Katie, upon seeing my intent, stood at the foot of the bed, quick to close the distance between us. My cousin stood on the tips of her toes, her arms opening, letting me into her embrace.

I fell into her, my head bent downward as she upturned hers to meet mine. It was a natural sort of ying and yang, coming together, culminating in a kiss.

My arms encircled her as our lips touched. I filled with such aching desire. It felt like I had stepped into an oven. A searing heat flowed outward from my stomach, inflamed my lions and made my face flush. I could feel a similar reaction from my cousin. The swell of her breasts pushed hard against me. The firm pressure of her pelvic bone along the middle of my growing cock and the frantic clutch of her squeeze.

“God, Estefan, you make me so fucking horny,” she mouthed around our kiss. Her voice made husky and deep with lust.

I chuckled from the chest and whispered a long, drawn out, “Goooood,” but I didn’t stop. I kept kissing my cousin. I parted her lips with my tongue, which she immediately began to suck. I let my hands fall to her firm butt cheeks and kneaded them hungrily. I used this newfound leverage to grind thickness my dick into her pubis. Her welcoming labium’s parted for me, through our pajamas – perfect. I pressed against her engorged clitoris.

She shuddered in my arms for a few moments then returned the pressure. She twisted her hips a bit, so my penis was rubbing across her little nob of pleasure. Back and forth she went with each twitch of the intimate portions of her body.

All the while, we kept kissing and kissing and kissing.

It was the sharp intake of breath and an astonished; “Oh my god!” That brought us both to reality like a splash of ice cold water. We stiffened in each other’s grasp, our kiss broken, both of us turning to look in the direction of the voice - frozen in place. My hands were still cupping Katie’s firm ass. Her own were digging into my bare shoulder blades, nails biting. I hadn’t worn a shirt that night.

It was Tirza, who had come from the bathroom in a rush, likely thinking I was still on the other side of the room. Only she found me on the side she was facing, making out with my cousin.

I know we looked like we were two seconds from ripping off our clothes and going at it.

It was the moment of truth. Either Tirza was going to accept the taboo of my intimate relationship with my first cousin. Or she was going to go ape-shit and blow the whole fucking thing to kingdom come.

Instead, she just stood there on the balls of her feet like a deer in the headlights, as immobile as us. Her lower jaw was the only thing moving, in a weird sort of half-closing, half-opening rhythm. It was strange to watch. Was she unconsciously biting off word after word? Was she in a state of flux unable to express herself? She appeared animatronic, not alive at all.

From farther back, on the opposite side of the Loft, came Ramona.

I watched as my girlfriend sashayed toward the rest of us.

Her round hips jutted left, then right as she came upon bare feet. She gripped the carpet like a tiger, like a prowling female feline about ready to pounce. “Aren’t they delicious to watch?” she asked once abreast of Tirza, who had still not moved.

“W-what?” sputtered my ex-girlfriend.

“Doesn’t it get you all mojada just watching them?” clarified my girl. She used the feminine word for “wet” in Spanish. When spoken in a sexual context, it meant “soaked”.

Now Tirza was more than confused and came to rest upon the bottoms of her feet. Her gaze shifted to my girlfriend. “What!?!” Her brow knitted.

The three of us giggled like elementary kids after hearing someone say a bad word for the first time. Tirza was more Valley Girl than Latina from the day she was born, though both of her parents spoke fluent Spanish.

Her head whipped about between the three of us, anger growing behind her eyes. She was thinking we’d played some sort of cruel joke at her expense.

“It means ‘wet’… only in a girlie sort of way,” supplied Ramona. Her eyebrows rose as she tried to get the point across to my ex-girlfriend.

Katie and I unglued ourselves from one another, though we continued to hold hands.

We all watched the comprehension dawn upon the tiny teen before us.

“Eeew, Ramona, why would you think that would turn me on?!?” It affronted her, the thought of becoming aroused from watching Katie and I going at one another.

“…Because it does exactly that to me…,” was all she said. Then she gave me and my cousin one of her magnificent smiles.

Tirza’s jaw dropped like an anvil. “You can’t be serious,” she managed after a time.

Her eyes danced toward those of my ex-girlfriend, until she was looking at her out of the furthest corners. “I am serious, Tirza.”

This boggled Tirza’s mind. It was plain for us all watching. Her tiny body shook with what had to be incomprehensible thoughts. “How… How could that be true, Ramona? That’s his cousin and you’re his girlfriend, how could you share him with her? They are blood relatives.”

I had never heard such indignation from Tirza before. Not even when we’d argued over religion or Theology in the past. Those were two of the most important topics of consideration in her life. Still, she hadn’t shown as much disdain or loathing of my opinion of the Church in one’s life than she displayed right then.

Katie went livid, her cast darkening. Tirza had made her angry.

I gripped her hand hard for a moment and she glanced up at me. I shook my head in a minuscule fashion. It was imperceptive to all but Katie.

Not now, my love. Not now.

“I can’t change what this is, Tirza. I think one day you will understand it all as much as I do, and as they do.” She motioned toward me and my cousin. “It’s something I can’t quite explain, and yet, I know it is a truth I cannot deny. I couldn’t change this even If I wanted to. It’s hardwired into us, a kind of mental tug that draws us all to him. It’s getting stronger with every passing day.

“Isn’t that right, Katie?” asked Ramon. Her voice filled with meaning, yet there was a measured quality to it. A church confessional came to mind, though I don’t know why.

It was my cousin’s turn to grasp my hand. “Yes,” she murmured, looking into my eyes.

It was amazing to see the love behind hers - pure, simple, and unblemished. I imagined at the time, it was like that of a child’s love for its parent – devoid of conditions. Only Katie had taken her love one step further. She wanted to be my wife.

My gaze was drowning in the hazel pools of my cousin’s orbs when Tirza stomped of a sudden. She exploded with an exasperated huff, stalked over to the bed and sat down heavy. She crossed her arms across herself and stared up at Katie and me. “Do you know how much it hurt me when you spoke her name while we were making love?”

I turned to face the sitting girl, feeling shame and chagrin creeping up and over my shoulders with its’ sick touch. It made me cringe. “It was mistake, Tirza, an errant slip of the tongue. You were never supposed to know. No one was, not even Katie.”

Tirza’s face bunched. “No one was to know you secretly wanted your cousin? You wanted to keep secret that you were thinking of her while you were screwing me that day? Doing the same things to her that you were doing to me? These were big things, Estefan. What I was doing with you when we were together, I hadn’t done with anyone else. I trusted you, because I believed in what we had. You told me that you loved me, dammit!”

“I did love you, Tirza,” I said at once. The memory of that emotion flooded into me like water gushing through a failing dam. It was small at first, but grew exponentially until it was all I could feel. I was submerging in the memory of her.

Tirza cradled her head in her hands, shaking her head back and forth for a few seconds. Then with abrupt ferocity she sputtered, “How could you love me when you were love with your cousin at the same time?!?”

“I did… I was!” I replied just as assured as her.

She looked away from me, crossing her arms about her person once more. She pursed her lips, sucking at them with obvious acrimony and misdoubt. “Oh my god, such a typical answer to hear, at a time like this, especially from a guy.”

“He’s not lying, Tirza.”

All three of us turned to peer at Ramona. She had maneuvered herself, so she was now standing before the tiny teenage girl on the bed.

“How do you know that?” Tirza snapped. She wanted to pick a fight. It was evident by her tone.

“Because, he’s not,” was her succinct retort.

My ex-girlfriend glared at my girlfriend through eyes squinting with distrust and frustration, and some degree of antagonism as well.

Ramona bent at the knees and squatted before Tirza. They were more or less at eye level with one another. “He is not lying,” she began, placing one of her hands upon the other’s knee. “He is different, Tirza.” She chanced a glance in my direction. “Very different,” she went on, “and you have to understand this difference, if you are ever going to understand him. He might say or act like other men his age, but, on his most basic level, he's made in a different way. He will always be apart from them. That is what you have to remember or he will drive you crazy.

“He would be dangerous to women if he used his will against us. He could cause more traumas to our sex than any other man in the history of Mankind. But, that would only be true if he put his mind and his body to the full extent of his ability. He could have us all in his palm. He could crush our hearts by pitting us against one another or by making it a game to win his heart. He could set himself as the prize among all prizes if he chose, but he doesn’t. Thankfully, he doesn’t. He’s not built that way. He chooses to love instead, because he has a massive heart. I think it allows him to love more than one woman.” She stood and sauntered up to me. “So far, Tirza, I can see five women - five women - he will love. And these five women who will love him back.” She paused for effect. “That might not be all the girls. There may be more.”

“Five?!?” croaked Tirza.

“Five,” repeated my girlfriend.

I shook my head, not willing to believe that Leda, Sandy and Tirza would all want me one day. It just seemed too far-fetched to be true. Even back then, I wasn’t a big fan of the fantastic or fantasy. My parents’ divorce had washed that away from me, like the storm surge of a hurricane. Once those turbulent waters receded, the landscape that had been me was forever altered. I was now barren of flighty dreams and whimsical childhood thoughts.

“There may be more,” continued Ramona, reiterating what she had said before. “I’m not too sure about that, but what I am sure about is, one of them is you.”

Tirza started to protest, but my girlfriend forged on.

“You don’t see how that could be possible now, but you will. You will. I know him much better than I know you. When he realizes, somewhere in the center of himself, he still loves you, that those feelings never went away. His astonishment alone will draw you like a bee to the pollen of a flower. It will be so natural, so instinctual, you won’t even realize when you made the conscious decision to love him back. You just will and that will be enough, no further explanation needed.”

I rolled my eyes and left. This was too much, too soon. Everything was happening at the same time. I spun on my heel and went to the bathroom to wash up, though behind me Roman was still talking. As I put toothpaste to my brush and behind to cleanse my teeth of the detritus of the night, I could hear them all in deep conversation. I frowned at my reflection in the mirror as I brushed with unnecessary vigor. I was certain they were sharing notes, which irked me. Some things, some topics, should remain unspoken. They should remain private, especially if I’m in the next goddamned room!

Not with you, Estefan Ernando, I thought at I stared at myself. You’re different remember?

Fuck you! I yelled without sound at the image before me.