Chapter 28

Brindy's turn:

Brindy McPherson. Lost. Found. Lost again. Found again.

Rough life. Single mom. They used to call them 'the projects' – public housing, you know.

In the projects out of sixty units, there were two white families. That's rough, and I won't tell you any more than that. Rough. Mom got on the waiting list for Section 8 housing which got us out of the projects, but it was still rough. When I got to high school, I was a young girl who saw entirely too much, knew entirely too much, but actually loved school, especially English and social studies. I could hang in there in math and science, but I LOVED English, especially the parts where I was required to write.

High school, though, hormones and the whole mating ritual. I'm not too bad looking, but not one of the cheerleaders or the top tier 'faces'. Mom didn't deny me the chance to date.

I fell into a trap. I got badly used because I was one of those idiots who equated 'he wants to fuck me' with 'he loves me'. Got me one of the new milestones of sexual promiscuity – an abortion. Got me another, too. Gonorrhea. Chlamydia. I was fighting all that when I showed up at the beginning of my senior year in Pat Johnson's English class.

I was seventeen, abused. Pat was a great teacher. Something about her though, made her seem approachable, so I approached. English questions, naturally. How do you get a foot in the door as a writer? She took me to some readings at the university. After about a month and a half of hanging out, things progressed. One of us kissed the other one. I honestly don't remember who initiated. Maybe we just collided.

Seventeen year old student and a teacher. Pat knew what could happen. We were very discreet. I graduated. Turned eighteen. Less discreet. Moved in.

Pat lives on the same block as her brother. We talked about her family and mine. There was something, though, about the way Pat talked about her brother. A look there, one that I could not decipher.

"Pat, you can tell me. Did he ever abuse you? There's something I'm not getting."

"No, Brindy," she said. "If he had, it would be easier."

"Tell me."

You must understand that I know about incest, I'd just never been exposed to somebody who'd participated. Pat and Dave. I suppose that when you take two people who are as close as brother and sister, pull them out of a couple of failed relationships, toss them together, both a little sad, add a couple of bottles of wine...

They lived together a week, Pat said. Almost got to the point of just packing up and moving to another state and living together as husband and wife. From the way Pat talked, they both agreed that common sense prevailed. Learning more about Pat, I wonder. Pat talked with me about her brother.

"He's like the perfect man, Brindy. Best lover I've known. He's a good person. Good looking."

By the time I moved in with Pat, we'd already decided that I was going to meet Dave and we were going to get married and he was going to have me and Pat living with him and sleeping with him. I can tell you that those conversations were curious and impassioned and in addition to sleeping with a minor, Pat committed another felony, plying me with wine. I get mellow, she gets mellow, we make love, we talk, things make a lot more sense when you have a buzz and a few orgasms on you.

I never met her brother until he brought home Carlita. I didn't meet Carlita, either, until the day that she and Pat talked about birth control.

Pat was upset. I know she was upset for several reasons. First, Carlita, when Pat first met her, was fourteen. Carlita's new passport and birth certificate say she was eighteen, she was living with Pat's brother, and she wanted birth control. That was the second part, I think. Pat had to face the idea that there WAS another woman in her brother's life and they were having sex.

It was entirely impossible for me to see Carlita and get angry at her. She's little, lithe, big brown eyes, short dark hair, looks like you could make a great story using her as the character in a fantasy story about a nymph of the rain forests or something along those lines.

Seeing her with Dave ... Seeing Dave with Carlita, the way he included her in a space they created for each other.

I can see that if Dave treated Pat like that, if he'd treated ME like that, I would have tumbled like a house of cards.

Carlita joined me and Pat many times on days when Dave worked, even after he married her.

Pat worked some days in the summer, too, as part of curriculum development at her school. That put me and Carlita alone together.

Carlita is inquisitive. "I do not begin to know what would happen between two women in bed," she said.

"You kiss Dave, don't you?"

"Yes."

"He touches you?"

"Yes."

"Uh, you can tell me to stop being nosey if you want, but has he ever ... down there, with his mouth?"

She nodded with a grin. "Oh, very much yes ... You and Pat?"

"Yes. When you love somebody..."

"You love Pat."

"I do, but I am afraid I'm not a very good lesbian. I still find men attractive, too. We have ... toys..."

"Toys?"

"Like a man's penis..."

"I have never seen such a thing."

"Do you want to?"

"I think I would."

I showed her 'Dave'. That's a kick. What do you do with a woman who has a dildo named for her brother and tells you it's the same size? I didn't tell Lita that it was named 'Dave', not that day.

I didn't feel like I was cheating on Pat, and Carlita did not think that exploring things with me was cheating on Dave. We ended up in bed. Several times.

I can't keep secrets from Pat. I told her.

"No, I understand, Brin," she told me. "That means there's still a chance. We need to approach Lita, rather delicately."

We did. Carlita objected, but Pat talked of love, the love she had, illicit though it might sound, for her brother, and how we all could fit together.

I was surprised that Lita bought it. We planned. Executed the plan, starting one crazy day on Dave's boat.

It was the first time that I WANTED a man. It was Dave. It was the first time that a man made me climax. It was Dave.

It was supposed to keep going. Pat and I could not have a baby together, not two women, but if Dave gave me the baby, then it was the closest I could get to Pat's DNA. Pat denied it, but I really think she wanted his baby as well. We had a plan. When we solidified our relationship, Dave was supposed to impregnate me. I think a missing pill, maybe a whole cycle or two, on Pat's part and...

That evening it all fell apart. Carlita ... second thoughts. Regrets.

The next day, Pat and I went for a ride, just to get out of the house. Pat said she still thought she could get Dave to give semen to impregnate me. I didn't say that I wanted him to give me semen the old-fashioned way.

Riding in the country. The wreck. Screams, then nothing ... I lost Pat. I thought I'd lost everything.

Dave. Carlita. They took me in.

We got a new bed. There is a hole in me where Pat was supposed to be, but I was surrounded by love in Carlita and Dave.

They gave me a ring.

"Dave cannot marry you officially, Brindy," Carlita said. "But rest assured, you are married to us. We are married to you."

We're all together, and all really confused as to how this is supposed to work. King-sized bed is certainly big enough for the three of us. Actually, I was quite happy sleeping with them in their old queen bed.

Pat loved me, I know, but Dave and Carlita? Yes, they do. They're not trying to substitute for Pat in my life, they've given me a life after Pat.

The first morning ... the day after Pat's accident. Dave ... affirmation of life. I cried. I cried for losing my Pat. I cried for being alone. I cried because Dave and Lita told me that I was loved and wanted and Dave was inside me and Lita was in the bed with us, kissing us both, touching Dave in ways that she knows will make him come in me.

Since then the three of us have made love many times. The day the bed was delivered, it was me and Carlita in the middle of it. It's not about sex, but gosh, it could be. Carlita is cute, sexy, that forest nymph exterior. More, though, a caring person, a lover who is exuberant and adventurous. We do so well together, but together we admit that we need Dave. I revel in thinking of him filling me or the sight of him filling her.

Life together, though, for the three of us.

Carlita's teaching me to cook things she knows. Until college starts, we're alone during the day while poor Dave goes to work. Our house is immaculate, for one thing. Another thing, we've cleaned out our neglected flowerbeds. I laugh. The one in the front of the house might be ornamental, but the ones in the back are herbs and things.

"Too late for summer vegetables. I want chilis – peppers. Next spring..." Carlita said. "And maybe tomatoes and some other things."

"I'm turning into Farmer Brown," I laugh. Actually, though, the activity helps me with my extra weight. Dave swears he loves the way I'm built. I'm thinking that Dave has clear choice, slender Carlita who's put on a few pounds since I first met her, and me, with my extra pounds. I can't tell by his enthusiasm in bed that he prefers one over the other.

Dave still has to go off on overnight trips in his service area, though, and that leaves me and Lita to our own devices. College started, though. Some classes I'm on campus and Lita's home, or vice versa. Sometimes we're both there.

Frankly, I'm amazed. I know for a fact that Carlita is fourteen despite documents to the contrary. I also know, though, that she pays attention and grasps things and she will see a couple of facts and derive more answers on her own. She surprises me. She surprised Pat, too, for that matter. Dave? Dave was so in love with Carlita that he was beyond blind to anything except those big brown eyes.