Chapter 27

Carlita's turn:

Day Three of the Great Sadness. Brindy and I went to the clothing store ... Listen to me. When I was in Guatemala, the 'clothing store' for us was one shop that handled second-hand clothes sent from America to Pastor Bob at the orphanage. Now I am IN America and there are too many clothing stores for me to list and Dave has money for me to no longer need used clothing.

Brindy and I have the sad task of buying dresses for Pat's memorial service. Pat. My sister Pat, who became my sister in one day and in the weeks following, my friend as well, then in the last week ... more. Pat, who was the care-giver and lover of my other sister, Brindy.

With Brindy's and the sales lady's help I walked out of the store with a beautiful dark blue dress that they both assure me is appropriate for the memorial service. Brindy bought one of similar style and color. Anybody who sees us side by side will know that we wish to be considered as connected together.

Dave is home. I do not want to leave Dave alone too long. His sadness is deep. Brindy has told us how deeply Pat felt about her brother in her life, even the part where they were so much more than brother and sister.

Dave put his suit on that afternoon and we all loaded up to go to the memorial service. Pat had a lot of friends and us, her family. Gary delivered the eulogy. We received the good wishes of dozens of Pat's friends, then it was time to go home.

Home. Without Pat. We had only each other. Gary and Carlie went home to themselves and the kids. Brindy and Dave and I went home to ourselves.

We all cuddled together, clothes on the floor beside the bed. One more good crying for our lost Pat.

Brindy sat up, touched both me and Dave. She wiped her eyes. "It is time for us to start living. I don't think that Pat wants us to mourn forever." She looked at Dave. "Tomorrow you go back to work. Lita and I will do our Thursday night English As a Second Language class. We will live together. Love together. Be together."

"Brindy..." I said.

"I cannot live in pity. I lived in pity until I met Pat. She showed me how to live and love, but she still had those corners of hurt and loss. We were trying to work through those. Now that she is gone, she would tell me to hold my head up and be happy." She bent over and brushed Dave's lips with hers, then she kissed me. "Let's go fix us something to eat."

She hopped out of bed, headed for the kitchen, snatching shorts and a T-shirt as she went.

I caught Dave when he tried to get up, laid him out, and crawled on top.

"I love you, Dave," I said, kissing him. "Brindy is right." I felt him hardening. I flashed my eyes at him. "Not now. Later. Me. Brindy. You. That part of our life will be very full." I punctuated my statement with a squeeze as I bounded up off him. "Come on."

College starts in a week. Brindy and I, both ... we have the books. We have the schedules. Fortunately we have two cars, because there is not much overlap, even though we are taking the same courses.

Of course, much discussion. We are family. We have moved much from Pat's house to ours. We have given and sold much. The house is now on the market.

Brindy and I are home one day. Dave has been out of town overnight. Brindy and I ... We long for our Dave, but we have each other as well.

Dave comes in late in the day. We know he has been driving, trying to get home to us.

We all exchange kisses. I can feel his body, firm, expectant, needing. I also know something is going to happen. Dave and I talked.

"Sit, Brindy," Dave said.

Brindy had a questioning look in her eyes, but she complied. I sat next to her.

"I hope that I understand your feelings for me, Brindy ... for us. We want you to have this," he said. He pulled a little black jeweler's box from his pocket and opened it.

I already knew what was in it. Brindy had no idea.

"We can't officially marry you, Brindy. I want you to have this ring, though. Carlita..."

"I want you to have this ring, too. You are part of us."

Brindy's tears wet Dave and I both.

"It's scary," Dave said. "You could pick up and leave at any time ... We want you here, though."

"Dave," Brindy said, "That 'leaving' thing, that's always true, no matter what. I love you and Carlita ... My Lita," she said, brushing my hair with her fingertips. "Whatever was wrong with me, you two have fixed it. I worry how we will fit together as a marriage..."

I smiled. "We have fit together quite well, Brin."

"I know ... It's wild, it's ecstasy, but ... Lita, he's your Dave. You want time alone with him..."

"He is your Dave as well, Brindy. Our schedules with school and life, we will have time where it is just the two of us, or me and Dave, or you and Dave. And we will learn like we already know, that the three of us together ... It is different sex ... but it is between people who love each other."

Dave puts the ring on Brindy's finger while I hold her hand. "This is serious, Brindy."

She put her arms around his neck as he knelt before her. They kissed. "I am serious about you two. Both of you. Never one over the other. Lita knows I am not trying to take her husband, Dave knows I am not trying to take you, Lita."

"We shall be a family," I said. "A little different than many, but a family, nonetheless. We know that we are married to each other. The rest of the world will only see a married couple who are providing a room for their friend. We have my old bedroom..."

Brindy giggled. "That you never slept the night in..."

Dave just smiled. "I put her in there a time or two. Tried."

I grinned. "I tried harder NOT to sleep without my Dave. Now I will not sleep without my Brindy either."

Brindy and I went bed shopping the next day. We would make a point of being home on Friday to have the new bed and mattresses delivered. Our shopping also included new linens and extra pillows.

I find it very pleasant to have Brindy at my side as I run the errands needed to keep my house ... our house going.

"You're more domestically minded than I am," Brindy told me. "You know what it takes to run a home."

"Dave. He provided me with a place. I suspected that my role was to keep it going for him. When I became eighteen and could drive."

We brought things home and built a meal. I let Brindy show me one of her favorite dishes after we looked up the recipe on the Internet. "I just am not as comfortable as you are in the kitchen, Lita. Your arroz con pollo..."

"All around the world," I said, "there are chickens, and in many places, there is rice. Every place, arroz con pollo even if they call it something else. Carlie makes Cajun chicken fricassee. I told her, arroz con pollo. Everywhere. Rice with something to add flavor."

"You make sense."

"So you add things that taste good to you. You learn what to do with vegetables, what to do with meat, you put them together, you make a dish."

"I can learn like that."

"And recipes also. We use both."

"Did you ever have a recipe for making love with Dave?"

I smiled. "No. Dave. Me. Girl. Boy. Things just matched. You?"

"Me 'n' Pat ... We found ways to please each other. The men before, pleasing me was not on the agenda. I was supposed to be lucky to be with them."

"That is behind you now. Dave ... I can see that he very much enjoys pleasing you."

"I enjoy pleasing him." She smiled at me. "I enjoy pleasing you, too, Carlita. You rock my world."

I felt warmth down there. Squeezed my legs together. Brindy noticed. She smiled.

"We could be naked right now..."

I smiled. "We could. Laundry to do. That's all."

"Do you..."

"I think I do. Poor Dave. He is at work. We are here, about to be naked."

"We will make it up to him, Lita."

"We must. I know what you do to me. it is different than what Dave does to me..."

"Oh god, yes," Brindy said. "That THING!"

"Come on. Let's go put our clothes in the bedroom."

Brindy's kiss is not the same as Dave's kiss, and honestly, there are too many other things that Dave brings that will forever keep me thinking of him, but Brindy's kiss ... we undress and I know...

Making love with Brindy ... She is very gentle and soft and satisfying, but there is not that feeling deep inside where Dave is deep in me and I feel him pulsing and I am having pulses of my own. That is missing with Brindy, but I love her no less. She is tender and I enjoy feeling her as I do so many things with her. But afterward, she tells me, "I bet you miss the same thing as I do. Poor Dave."

"Dave is a lucky man to have us." I smile. "I am fortunate. I would consider myself fortunate to have Dave only, Brindy, but you are in my life now and I am doubly fortunate."

She was playing, touching my small breasts.

"They are not big. Most females, especially from Guatemala..."

"Does Dave like them?"

"He loves them, he says."

"I think they're pretty. Not like mine. Different."

"I like yours. Soft. Round. Mine are just humps on my chest..."

I gasped when she rolled over and suckled my nipple.

She giggled. "Does it feel like I don't like them?"

Sex is going to make me useless. Brindy, too. At least we are freshly showered when Dave gets home and dinner is ready.

We kiss him as we head out the door on our way to our English class.

The class goes well. There are many soft words about the loss of Pat, but the class, we lift it, teaching, making things interesting as I teach English to Spanish speakers and Spanish speakers exercise their English in teaching Spanish to Brindy. By the time this class ends, she will be doing quite well. My sister is not stupid.

We return home to Dave. He is watching a movie on TV. I get on one side of his chair, Brindy gets on the other, and we kiss him at the same time.

"Do you think he has showered, Brindy?" I asked.

Brindy's eyes laugh. "Smells awfully good, you know."

"I think he is good enough to eat."

Brindy is already fishing his thing out of his pajamas. I notice that he does not protest much. She kisses the end of it, then smiles at me. I suck him into my mouth.

"Is this a movie you need to finish watching?" Brindy asks.

"Movie? What movie?"

We took him into the bedroom.

"Last night in this bed, baby," Brindy said. "New one's coming tomorrow."

We told him this while we were undressing. Now I have his hard dick in my hand. This is what I need. I see Brindy look at me as she reaches down to cup his balls.

I am thinking how wonderful those parts are.

We have him in bed now. "You are so easy, Dave," I say, kissing my man.

"You're so sexy, Carlita," he replies. He musses my hair. Still short, but getting longer. I see his eyes. He is not lying to me. He thinks I am sexy. I kiss him again, and I sigh heavily into his mouth as I feel Brindy nipping my buttock.