The Misbegotten

Those images flashed through my mind when my mother asked me if I could help make Katie feel more at home here in Los Angeles. She was wondering if I was mature enough. Her hope was to keep my head about me and help the girl not think about Oklahoma as much as possible that summer.

No problem, mom. I got this one, mom. Yeah right…

Had Katie wanted to suck my dick?

I couldn’t think straight. The entire day at school I was distracted. I only half-heard and saw what was happening around me. The school year was winding down and all my friends were ecstatic summer vacation was about to begin. Despite the fact most of us wouldn’t be going anywhere far during our time off. The governments’ restrictions on travel would see to that.

But still, there were other things to look forward to - the late nights and the parties. The partying was more than enough to assuage our sense of freedom from our rigorous routines while school was in session.

It seemed like forever to get through the day. We didn’t do much, mostly talked or passed notes, but my mind was elsewhere. Even making out with my girlfriend hadn’t helped much.

She had whispered something like, “I can’t wait for school to end, so we can make love every night.”

Still though, her enthusiasm only half-registered. The girl from Oklahoma preoccupied my mind. There was only room for Katie. I managed the best I could.

During this time, my mother brought Katie home. She told her she would be staying with me, up in the third story Loft. She would have her own private bed and share a bathroom with no one but me. None of the other children in the house, or the adults for that matter, would bother her in case she felt the need for privacy.

The Loft, as we called it, was a large room with a partial view of the second floor below at one end. In truth, it was a walled-in part of the attic with two “bedrooms”, which we separated with curtains. There was also a walled in half-bath with a toilet, a small sink and a shower.

Up until her arrival, the Loft had been my domain. I had moved up there a month after the contractors had built out the attic. They added the electrical and plumbing, turning it into a small apartment of sorts. It was a place I safeguarded against intrusion with zealous fervor. It was my little sanctuary away from my siblings, my parents, even the world sometimes. When things proved difficult for me, I had a place to get away from it all.

To tell you the truth though, after what happened the previous summer, I was more than willing to share my living space with Katie. My imagination had been running wild for so long with that one final image in my head…

She had leaned forward, right? Had she been on the verge of tasting my cock? Had she wanted me that way? Or was it all just a horny teenage boy’s fantastical wet dream? Had I invented the whole thing? Had I created something so I could jerk off in the shower with thoughts of her? Was it all in my mind? Or, had Katie leaned forward, wanting to taste my…?

I got home later that afternoon, earlier than usual. Track season ended for me a few weeks earlier. The faster athletes from around the school district smoked me in the city semi-finals of the 400m dash. Thus, I had finished a disappointing sixth and was ineligible to move onto the next round of meets.

Normally, I would have been home around 5:30 pm. Today though, I walked through the front door (a little anxious) about twenty minutes before 4. All my siblings were already home. My mother, after picking up Martín from grammar school right, had only to driven down the street to get Johan from his. Flavia had got a ride from a friend, so she had beaten me home as well. My baby sister Lucia was too young for school at the time. My mother had picked her up first at the daycare center on Figueroa Street.

When I walked into the house, little Lucia rolled up to me within moments, pushing her bulky “lawn mower” toy. It bounced and jostled over the hard wood floors of the entryway.

She called out, “Effy! Effy! Effy!” Her tiny hands were already reaching for me as she scooted her way toward me at a run.

“Hi Lucy!” I cooed and stooped down to pick her up. I brought her tight into my arms and gave her a big slobbery kiss behind her ear.

She squealed with delight.

My mother walked up then, rubbing her hands on a dish towel. It was obvious, she was getting a head start on dinner.

I figured she was going to make it a big deal, since it would be Katie’s first formal meal with us. That was my mother’s way; make everyone feel comfortable no matter the circumstances. A guest was a guest and was thus deserving of the best treatment in her book.

My mother might’ve passed the most comely years of her life – time and child-bearing sapping some of her youth. But, to me – and many other men – she was still a welcomed sight to behold. She was a short five-foot-one with a full bosom and figure of a woman her age. She still sported the bubble-butt I had inherited from her. And, from the compliments I had heard for the older men around me, I guess you could say it was her most striking feature. True, she was fifteen pounds heavier than the ninety-eight pound angel I remember from my early childhood. But, her dainty characteristics and coarse, black hair, parted down the middle, made her seen exotic. She was quite appealing.

“She loves it when you do that,” commented my mother as she came to a halt, a big smile etched across her face. Her eyes sparkled at the glee in my three-year-old sister’s eyes.

I smiled at both of them, then raised Lucy even higher in my grasp. I pretended to chew up her belly, which made her laugh and kick.

She screeched at the top of her lungs, “Top it, Effy! Top it, Effy!”

My mother chuckled at the display, for a time. Then, she peered over at me when I stopped messing around with the toddler.

The little girl calmed down, gazing between us.

“Why don’t you give me, Lucy-Goosey. You go up and keep Katie company. She’s been shy, too shy for her, if you know what I mean. She seems embarrassed about what happened. She hasn’t spoken much since we got home. She hasn’t come down from the Loft either. I explained her she’d be staying up there with you and she just mumbled thanks and took up all her stuff. She looked sad, Eff. Why don’t you go to her and try to cheer her up. In a few hours, I’ll call you guys down for dinner, ok?”

I kissed my adorable baby sister once again, with love, as I transferred Lucia to my mother’s arms. There was concern on my face. I hadn’t expected depression to affect Katie in any way. She was never remorseful, never. It was unlike her to feel bad about what she’d done. I never would have thought she’d respond to the situation with genuine regret. One could say, I was a little shocked. It cranked my anxiety a few levels higher.

My typical kiss on the cheek I always give to my mother was robotic. I whispered a quiet, “ok”, in her ear. Then, I walked passed her and up the stairs into uncharted territory.

I was so nervous. I was almost skittish when I reached the uppermost landing on the third floor. I had walked down the main hall of the house, up the main staircase and through the hall on the second floor. From there, it was a short trip up the narrow stairs leading to the Loft.

The impending encounter with the girl I’d had an infatuation with for longer than I could recall made me wooden. I was stiff as if I were going to my own execution or something. I opened the door.

To my surprise, I found Katie sitting at the foot of my bed, thumbing through my yearbook from the year before. Her eyes were dancing over what my friends had jotted down, a half-smile seeping out of one side of her mouth. I stepped into the large room. I noticed she had pushed back the curtains separating the two sleeping areas. This opened up the space to more light. Plus, the cross breeze that usually blows through the chamber this time of the day was nice.

When I glanced back at her, Katie was already on her feet, looking back at me with tired eyes. There were dark circles marring what had always been flawless skin. She had pulled back her hair into a thick ponytail. All her face was visible. She looked gaunt to me. It was as though the skin on her face stretched against her skull. The cast revealed more of the angled bones underneath, rather than the usual, smoother curves of her flesh. Crow’s Feet I had never seen before were visible at the edges of her eyelids. She dressed in a simple sun dress made of cotton with a high waist, ending mid-thigh. She had pristine white tennis shoes on her feet without socks. A thin, feminine looking watch rode loose upon her left arm, at the wrist, above the widening of her palm.

“Hi,” she said, meek. She crossed her legs as if she was apprehensive of approaching me, bobbing up and down on the tips of her toes.

This was definitely not the Katie I knew. I had yet to see her like this.

I decided to dispense with the bullshit. During a brisk walk forward, I dropped my school shit on the floor. I came to her and gave her a big hug, slow and reassuring. I hoped.

“Hi yourself,” I mumbled in her ear as she returned my hug. Her arms hung limp against my back though.

When we came apart a few moments later, I saw she had tears in her eyes. Holy shit what the fuck had happened to her? I thought as I held her back by the elbows. I looked her over to see if she had been injured in the car wreck, but she appeared wound free to me.

“You ok?” I asked, feeling super lame, not sure what I could do to assuage an ailment I couldn’t see. This was not the same overconfident, foul-mouthed Katie. The hard, gross girl with little care about who she offended or what she said was not in evidence. This was not the strutting, flaunting upstart who flounced custom and dared upset tradition. Something had reached her, punctured the steel-reinforce veneer she had surrounding her heart. Something had taken a nice deep bite. This had to be a first for her, or so I deemed. She was rocked to the core, stunned by it. Even I couldn’t deny what I was seeing. It was plain from her body language, the way she moved, how she carried herself.

I had no idea of what to do about it. The situation stumped me.

“I’m fine,” she said after a time, “just a little worn out, I think. It’s been a tough couple of days.” She broke free from my grip, but hesitated long enough to pat one of my hands before they fell away. She returned to my bed and sat upon its edge.

I felt more than a little guilty at having obsessed about our little incident the year before. I hadn’t spent the time to think about all the shit she might be going through in the present. I was the one fixated on that memory, not her. She was in a whole different place, thinking about whole different things. What an idiot I’d become.

“You’re ok, though, right? I mean no broken bones or anything like that.” I tried to forge on, pushing aside what I’d been thinking only minutes before. Changing my train of thought seemed the right thing to do.

She sniggered. “Only a bruised ego and a tear, here and there, to my self-esteem,” she relied, somewhat plaintive. It was like she testing the hot water of her bath, one toe at a time. Her hands she stowed in her lap, pale legs peeking the hem of her dress.

“Wanna talk about it or something therapeutic like that?” I queried; a mild attempt to light the mood.

“Naw, not right now, if you don’t mind. It’s all still too new. It surges through my mind every time I close my eyes,” she replied almost at once. “Besides, I don’t want to cry all over again.” She added this with a quick glance at me. She turned her head to look over my shoulder, and out the window on the other side of the large room. Her eyes seemed a million miles away. She was lost.

The silence following was so thick, it almost made me choke. I had to say something, anything or I was going to lose it. I was going to make things worse for her, because I was inept when it came to things like this. “How did you guys get so far from Oklahoma with the travel restrictions?” I asked. It the stupidest thing coming to mind and, of course, I had blurted it out like an idiot.

She glanced at me with a frown. Her eyes blinked, rapid. She held in the tears threatening to flow.

I could see her wrestle with my question, her thin lips twisted at one corner.

“It wasn’t all that bad until we got closer to California,” she began. “Once we got close to the border, there were cops and NIA troopers all over the place. They were the ones that ran the plates of the car. The stupid, fucken troopers with their foreign accents, thinking they’re better than us. It’s not even their damned country to begin with.” She clipped each syllable as she spoke, some of her usual attitude coming to the fore.

I nodded, grateful to see some of the old Katie back. The Northern Intercontinental Alliance’s influence in the western portion of the United States had been growing over the course of the past year. To the point, many of us, living in this part of the country, had begun to rankle over their invasive tactics. They had a way of looking down at us as if we were lab rats and nothing more.

I guessed then, it was because she was from the Midwest and didn’t know better. The conditions I and my family were living, though oppressive to us, might seem downright draconian to her. The NIA was cracking down on Muto Terrorism. What could we do about it?

I glanced back at her and saw her fighting tears once more. “There’s nothing wrong with crying, Kat. You know that, especially here with someone who’s got your back,” I tried to explain. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to be tough or if she wanted to appear that way, so she could allow herself to break down later. Or maybe she was afraid of the troopers that had arrested her and her loser boyfriend. Maybe the realization of the act had just registered.

Instead, she shook her head and met my eyes across the five feet or so that separated. “I’ve never cried in front of you, Eff. You’ll think I’m weak or something.”

This shocked me. “What are you talking about?”

“You and I have always been tough on each other, brutally truthful, never holding back any punches. We’ve always tried to make the other understand the real world and how it worked. I don’t think I could handle you telling me how stupid I was for getting into that stolen car with a bunch of losers. I couldn’t bear hearing how much of a whore I am for getting myself really stoned, for waking up sticky from sex. Especially since I don't even remember what happened.”

I blinked.

She went on, “I can’t take that right now. I can’t, because I have become such a waste of blood and bones. I couldn’t stand you thinking I was a bad person.” It had come out in a rush. She looked like a deflating balloon with every word escaping her haunted lips. Her eyes seemed wild and the tears threatened again. Her face flushed. She took a shuddering breath to calm herself, and only just succeeded.

I have to admit, I was a little unprepared for the whole “sticky sex” part, but I set that aside, forcing my mind elsewhere. This was Katie here, before me. This was the girl who always challenged me and made me see things I never would’ve noticed on my own. It didn’t matter that she was a year younger and lived in a backwater state. She knew more of the world and how it worked, and knew exactly how dangerous a place it could be. She deserved more out of life than what she born into. She didn’t deserve her fucked up father and mother that was for sure. She was Katie, the girl who always had me guessing, never quite sure if she was going to scowl and cuss or smile and flirt. She had seen twice as much as I had and she was only sixteen years old!

“Since when have I ever passed judgment on you, Kat? That’s not how we are, you know that. We’re both fuck-ups. We do stupid shit all the time. We take risks and live closer to the edge. So, of course, when we make a mistake it is going to pale in comparison to the next guy or girl, right? I mean a straight-A student ditching class and taking the risk of getting a ‘B’ is a big deal to that person. Whereas, you and I wouldn’t even consider it a risk to begin with - it’s below our radar.

“So what? You ran away from home. You got in a stolen car and the cops, I don’t know, scared you guys and drove you off the road. But, it all started with one thing. That one thing set you off and you had to get away, no matter the cost. That’s what drove the events that happened later. Just focus on the one thing that drove you, made you react. That’s the real problem, that’s the real thing you have to deal with, to think about. All the other shit is just bullshit. So don’t think about it, it’s not important!” I moved closer to her and knelt on the floor before her. “Those other things don’t mean shit, Katie. Just learn from what you did and move on. What else are you going to do? Waste your time mulling over stupid shit, trying to undo what can’t be undone? Don’t waste your time.”

She had smiled and let one tear fall from her left eye.

I remember which one because it is the one that has teared up the fastest when she has cried in front of me after that day in 2018. I didn’t know that then, but the intensity of the moment has sort of burned the image in my brain. I can see it fall from the rim of her eyelid, cascading like melting ice down her cheek, to fall free and moisten her dress below.

Just like it was yesterday…

[He is glad. The program is working to perfection.]

She and I must’ve breathed a few times, though I don’t recall doing so.

Without warning, she reached out and rubbed my bald head. She squeezed it a few times before she let her hand fall to my shoulder. Her fingers scratched ever so slight at the back of my ear.

It was as though a slew of feeling passed between us. In a heartbeat, there had been no passage of time since we’d last seen each other. There was no longer some vast distance between us. In that moment, our knowing of one another rebooted and our knowledge of one another became complete.

“I was so glad my mother decided I should stay here for a while, instead of hauling my ass back to Oklahoma. Now, I know why. Even when Chad had asked me where I wanted to go and I told him that I wanted to see the ocean. Deep, deep down inside, I meant I wanted to see you. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I know it now. You are my ocean, Estefan. You are where I can hide all the horrible things I’ve done. You hide them away for me and keep them secret from the rest of the world. I am so lucky to have someone like you in my life, even though we live far away from each other. We don’t text or Facebook, or call one another, like we did in the old days.

“Still, I know, I can count on you and you will be on my side. Even if, I’m dead wrong, like I was in this case, you will still defend me. You consistently show me there’s still honor in the world, even now, even when this world of ours is about to fall apart.” She sighed, huge, but it was one of fatigue. It didn’t harbor any self-loathing or any other negative connotation.

I’d looked up at her, right into those hazel eyes. I saw again how she looked haggard, pinched by exhaustion. “You need some rest before we eat dinner,” I mentioned, watching as her shoulders slumped.

She let her spine curve, letting her body go completely limp. “Yeah,” was all she said.

“You wanna nap here or over there in your bed? It’s brand new, you know. My mom bought you some new sheets and a whole new comforter set,” I explained. I glanced over at the floral blankets my mother had purchased for the girl.

She never even looked at the other bed. “Here, where I can smell you,” she replied. She scooted herself further onto the bed, grabbed one of my pillows and turned on her side still watching me through a squint.

“You want me to read to you? You know how that always makes you go to sleep in like ten minutes,” I offered. For some reason, the monotonous tones of someone reading aloud always drove her to dreaming faster than any pill or quantity of liquor.

“That would be perfect,” she mumbled, unmoving.

I stood up and retrieved the school shit I had strewn about the floor. I placed it all on my desk, and then pulled the book I was reading from my backpack. I turned back toward the bed, book in hand. I stopped in my tracks.

Katie had fallen into the sleep of the dead.