Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten

by Richard M. Heredia

  She took our mutual reactions as a cue for her to continue. “Something has changed inside Estefan, and, for me, it was a very close thing indeed. Thank god, for close calls and last second 3-point shots that hit nothing but net. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense to me at all.”

  Katie’s bewilderment appeared to increase two-fold with every word that Ramona spoke, but I knew what she was getting at. She was talking about the precarious lives we all live. How sometimes the smallest things affect the biggest aspects of what we feel, what we do – the decisions we make. She had used the basketball reference, because she had learned this firsthand by watching the Lakers¹ on TV over the past year. Sometimes, it was only a touch-foul that altered the outcome of the game. The first time she understood this, she’d been beside herself with indignation for the remainder of the day.

  She was telling us she knew how close she had come to losing me.

  It seemed that my girlfriend had anticipated even that reaction as she abruptly shifted her gaze to me. “Effy, if you had any choice in the world, which one of us would you have beside you?”

  Katie literally twirled in my lap, so quickly, it was almost painful. My eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, feeling, with each passing heartbeat, I was peering up at them from the bottom of a well that kept somehow deepening. I was drawn farther and farther into the blackness of the earth with every breath I took as I gazed upon them. They sat there, waiting for me to do something, as if I could, as if I had to power to stop what was happening right here in parent’s TV room.

  Both of them - the natural beauty and the fashion model - scrutinized my every move. Katie’s hazel stare was piercing. Ramona’s slate-blue one exuded nothing but confidence, as if she believed she knew exactly how I was going to answer. I had my cousin, my first love, and my forbidden fruit. I had my girlfriend, the girl who opened my eyes to the world and made me see. Both of them were nothing but trouble for me. On about every aspect one could imagine.

  But, both of them loved me, and either one of them would walk by my side until the very end of the world. Both of them would be loyal, would grow into the better half of me and make me a better man in the long run. Whichever one of them I chose, the other would be devastated, forever altered by a simple choice I had made when we were young. Could I live with that? Could I look in the mirror, watching one of them stretch languorously on the bed we shared together, knowing the other was out somewhere in the world broken and lost? Could I bear to look upon my own image in that very mirror and not feel a sense of regret, that maybe I had chosen incorrectly, that maybe I should be with the other? Could I do something like that to either one of them? Could I choose from the both of them? Could I…? I felt my throat constrict and the moisture that had filmed the corners of my eyes return. How could I? What kind of monster would I become? They stared on, at me, both of them…

  The both of them…

  The both of them…

  “I… I don’t think,” I began, my voice nearly deserting me as sweat began to bead on my forehead, my upper lip, “I don’t think I could hurt either one of you, not after last night with Katie and not after sharing our first real kiss. And not after seeing what an amazing person my girlfriend has become. I would hate myself for the rest of my life…” I trailed off, unable to speak any more.

  Both of them…

  “What are you saying, Effy?” asked Katie with more than hint of supplication in her tone.

  Both of them…

  “Effy?” asked Ramona softly, which made Katie frown slightly.

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you feel about Katie, the truth no bullshit, she deserves it,” she asked bluntly.

  “I love her with all my heart.” I wasn’t thinking or trying to qualify anything. I merely said what she’d asked of me. The fact that she was my girlfriend and I’d just told her that I loved someone else, never even crossed my mind.

  Katie’s shoulders hunched and she put her hands up to her face, covering the lower portion of it, so she could still see us above them. She was unsure of what was going to happen next. She looked like she was cowering, but from what? The truth?

  Ramona didn’t react in any way discernible. In fact, she seemed entirely unmoved. Though when I watched closely, she was taken long, measured breaths and slowly released them before she spoke again. “How do you feel about me, Estefan? Truth only, please.”

  I caught her eyes with my own as my tears began to fall, making me feeling like a little boy who had just caught doing something bad, but I had to say it. “I love you with everything that I am.”

  She closed her eyes in relief and let out another explosive breath, though I hadn’t seen when she had last inhaled. She put one of her hands over her heart and smiled a knowing smile and let it creep across her face with each beat of her heart.

  Katie went still, like a deer in the headlights, she didn’t move, but was staring at me as if I just contracted the Hanta virus.

  “He can’t chose, Katie. Don’t you see that?” questioned Ramona once she had recovered herself.

  “Bu-but, what the fuck does that mean for us?” demanded my cousin, hitting the back of the couch and missing my face by mere inches.

  “It means two things, either we get used to it or we fight like the bitches we both know we can be and completely fuck up everything between the three of us. This, of course, will only result in neither of us being in his life for long,” was her simple reply.

  “You mean… we become a ménage a trios or you and I wage all-out war for him? Are you crazy, Ramona?” I could see Katie was fuming.

  I was so dumbfounded, I was regulated to bystander status, while the young women talked. I was more than glad for it.

  “No, I am not crazy, and don’t think we need to be a ménage a trios per se, or at least in the exact context of the phrase.” My girlfriend paused as she studied the smaller girl before her. “You are a very pretty girl, Katie, attractive and nice to look at, but I’ve never really been more than casually curious about what it would be like to be with a girl, and you?”

  “I’ve kissed girls, but I’ve never gone down on one or anything like that.” She quieted, repeating what Ramona had done to her only moments before. “I would probably have to know the girl pretty good before I did anything like that, you know?”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” was all Ramona said before she went silent.

  “So, you’re saying we should share him or fight like banshees for him and lose him in the end. Right – that’s what you saying correct?” ascertained Katie, wiping at her eyes and running her hands through her hair.

  “Yes, that’s what I am saying.”

  “What do you prefer?” wondered Katie aloud.

  Ramona smiled her big, gorgeous smile that lit up her face like a Christmas tree. “I want Estefan above anything else, if that means I have to share him in order to make that happen, then so be it. I would rather have you as the women I share my man with, then an enemy. I don’t think I’d like that at all. And, who knows, maybe we could grow to be ‘friends’ in the process.” She giggled, her eyes sparkling as she bracketed the word “friends” with a two fingers from each hand. “Who do you think?”

  “I’ve never had Estefan, though I’ve dreaming about it for a long time. I often imagined it was him and not the guy who was actually on top of me.” She paused to clear her thoughts. “Like you, though, I want that more than anything, even if it means I will rot in hell, because, truthfully, I am so tired of fighting. I just want to feel loved and have a degree of security I can trust. I want to live and experience these things as far away from my parents as humanly possible.” Katie sighed and twisted again, so that she could lean against me, placing her back upon my chest. “I would rather learn to share him and possibly learn to accept you as a permanent fixture in both of our lives, because I sure as hell would never want to do anything that would drive him away.” She reached over her head and stroked my baldhead like she often did wh
en she was telling me that she loved me. “What about you, Effy, do you think you could handle both Ramona and myself? You think you’re up to sharing yourself with two strong-willed, stubborn young women with more issues and dysfunctionality than your average insane asylum?”

  I placed my left arm around her waist and felt her small hands come to rest on my forearm. I stretched my other arm out toward Ramona who gripped my hand in both of hers, bringing it up to her lips and kissed it gently over and over again, her eyes closed. “I would consider myself the luckiest man alive to have either one of you, but I’m not sure I am worthy of the sacrifice you are both willing to undertake just to be with me. I’m not sure I’m that special, in fact, I know that I’m not. Why would you two want to do this?”

  “Because, I love you”, “Because, it is best this way”, they said it simultaneously. To this day, I never knew which one of them said which.

  I like the think they both said both phrases with two throats that, for one second, became one. When things got hard, got desperate, this was one of those perfect moments, in time, that always uplifted my spirits and pushed me to my feet. I could always fight on, even when things were at their worst, because of them. That memory always drove me to do what needed getting done, fuck the odds, fuck the consequences. I was always strong enough, because of what those two teenage girls had said to me that bright and sunny day in the summer of 2018.

  I remember asking them, once again, if they were certain they wanted to do this. I remember Katie had squirmed from my lap and grabbed my face with both hands and gave me a kiss so sweet on the lips, I cried beneath her tender touch. A few seconds later, she backed away and Ramona repeated what my cousin had done. Then, we were all on the couch hugging and crying like babies, just holding onto one another, rejoicing in what we’d just formed. Out of hatred and fear, loneliness and despair, the three of us had come together and decided that love, trust, and security were more important than anything else in the world. It would prove to be the cornerstone of our existence – we lived it each and every day we’ve been together ever since.

  There have been many other extremely important people in our lives over the years. Some of which were integral to our very survival. But the cornerstone of me, of Katie and of Ramona has always been the twisted covenant we forged that day in my parent’s house. It is the fundament driving our little band. It keeps us going. It keeps us whole. Though the struggle has become something we can more readily control – even manipulate – if it hadn’t been for our openness, our willingness to share, we would all have died long ago. We would’ve died right alongside all of our families, and more importantly, we wouldn’t have been able to fight back, because, plainly put, there had never been anything like us…

  Not ever.

  { ¹The Lakers: an American professional basketball team based in old Los Angeles (Angel Free Town), California. They played in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (the old NBA). }

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

  ~ Chapter 17 ~

  (Summer – 2018)

  Cojones

  We had - by the time the doorbell rang twenty minutes later - composed and straightened ourselves to the point we almost looked normal, though our excitement and wonder was difficult to contain. When I opened the door and saw Jacob standing there with a sandwich bag two thirds full of weed outstretched before him, I was nearly myself. He never even caught a whiff that the girls and I had decided to become a trio-in-everything. He was so preoccupied with the score, I doubt he would’ve noticed if I had answered the door in my boxers with each of the girls draped on either side, wearing nothing but their bras and panties. He would’ve walked right passed us as if all was perfectly normal. He would’ve begun rolling joints by the hundreds on the dining room table, if I would have let him.

  Instead I said, “Dude, do you really need to flaunt the fact that you have a shit load of weed to the entire fucking neighborhood?!? Fuck, Jake, sometimes I think you’re retarded or something.”

  He stuffed the bag under his shirt as fast as he could, glancing around to see of anyone had noticed he was carrying enough marijuana to put us both in jail for five to ten, especially now. The NIA had been ruthless with drug trafficking and usage. They had gone so far as to rescind the legalization of marijuana in the fifteen states that had already passed laws ratifying its’ legality. In some cases, those resolutions had been on the books for more than six years like in Washington state and Colorado. No, it was best not to take chances. Of course, Jacob was either too stupid to be aware of this or had a mind too muddled to remember. It was a matter of common sense, right? What a douche!

  I backed up and let him in. He looked ridiculous with his hand up his shirt clearly hiding something underneath it. I followed him into the TV room were the girls were sitting on the couch, one at each end.

  He glanced from one to the next, waiting to illicit some kind of response. When neither of them looked his way, he turned back to me with a bewildered cast to his countenance. It was the classic “don’t they know I have the weed?” sort of expression.

  “Well, ladies, Jacob has returned with the goods and the food should be arriving any second now,” I announced.

  Both girls turned to me and smiled widely, completely ignoring Jacob. Man, if that was ever a freeze out, then I’ve never seen one in my life! It was like the dude wasn’t even there. I covered up his unease by continuing. “So, I say we get what we need from the kitchen and set up camp upstairs in the Loft that way, should any of my family members come home earlier than expected, we’d have ample time to put away or hide whatever contraband we’d have out at the time.”

  “Good idea, my love,” agreed Ramona as she bounced up off the couch and twisted toward Katie. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go get organized.”

  Katie shut off the TV and followed my girlfriend out of the room through the other door. Both of them talked loudly about the food that was coming. I myself was sort of looking forward to it as well. Katie had ordered pizza, a few very good Chinese dishes and four pastramis, one for each of us. There was no way we were ever going to finish all of that food. But, practical as always, my cousin had mentioned should we partake of some of the marijuana, we were gonna get the munchies, so we might as well be prepared in advance. Ramona had laughed, mentioning that smoking pot only made her horny, which made all three of us laugh nervously. The room had turned anxious as we eyed each other warily. This was going to be weird until we figured out what the ground rules were exactly.

  Nonetheless, we had a shit load of food coming our way, so the girls went to get what we would need, leaving me and Jacob alone.

  “You guys gonna need any help?” I yelled after them just make sure when I heard Katie reply in the negative, so I motioned for Jacob to follow me. He stood there for a second longer still trying to figure out what had just happened. He trailed after me as I began making my way up the stairs. “So, Jake, how’d we do on the weed?”

  That seemed to shake him out of his discomfiture in almost an instant. “Dude, my boy hooked us up, ‘cuz. He gave me like, fuck, I don’t know like two ounces free when I told him I wanted to spend the two fifty.”

  “Really?” I was somewhat surprised, usually drug dealers were stingy motherfuckers, fucking way worse than any penny squeezing Vieja, and that was fucking-a, god’s honest truth! I know, because I was one of them.

  “Yeah, bro, he hooked us up! Look how much fucking shit we have! He gave me like a five percent markup from his price, which is unheard of on the streets. But, homeboy’s got my back, ‘cuz, you know, ever since I got his little chivato out of a jam and shit”, he explained, holding the bag in front of him, admiring it, as though he had a bag full of diamonds.

  What the fuck, Jake, why do you always talk like a fucking Cholo every time you got weed in your hand? You sound so stupid, because you are not a Cholo!

  “Well, then I’ll make you a deal, a quarter of that shit is y
ours to keep,” I told him, thankful he hadn’t screwed the entire thing up. Plus, I felt magnanimous enough to give him a little something in return, in light of what Katie and Ramona had agreed to give me. You know, Karma – the Ying and the Yang. That shit’s important!

  “No shit?” he asked even more excited.

  “No shit, Jake, call it a finder’s fee or whatever, you earned it.”

  “Thanks, Eff!” he bellowed and put his hand up so we could high five.

  I came up to the first landing on the second floor and smacked his hand, which he clasped within his own.

  “There’s a reason why I like you more than all the other mamones in our fucking family,” he said.

  That made me laugh, knowing he was speaking about the Marquez’ branch of my family. They were the miscreants and washouts that had sprouted from my biological father’s lineage, people born under so many strange and incredible social circumstances, any attempt to explain a fraction of the truth… well, it would be very hard to believe. That’s a whole story onto itself. But fuck those assholes, this is my story!

  “Not all of them are as fucked as you make them out to be,” I inputted my opinion as I walked passed my parents’ Master suite on my way up to the third floor.

  “Oh yeah, did you hear about Tita, right? Aunt Irene’s oldest?” he asked.

  I nodded, recalling what my mother had told me a few months ago when my Grandma Trina had called and filled her in on the goings-on with that part of the family. Something really bad had happened to Tita that no one could comprehend. One day, she was the same old twenty-seven year old woman she’d always been - your traditional, statuesque Cholita. She had the lacquered hair, stiff with hairspray and tattoos on the small of her back, her arms, and even one rumored to be just outside the left side of her vagina that read something like, “You Get This Far and Its Por Vida”.