The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Three Into One Goes Easy, It Seems

Previously: "How Alana Met Marcos" 

La Doña and Mamacita like you.

That's what Marcos said about Cristina Ramon and Trina Murillo after you met and talked to them during your break. You only said, I'm glad, and didn't question it further when he said that they wanted to take you to lunch the next day.

Cristina picked you up at the apartment at around noon, and you could tell by the way she cast a fish-eyed glance about the complex that she didn't like it. But she didn't say anything, and only asked where you wanted to eat. When you expressed no preference, she took you to La Cocina, and called Trina on the drive out to tell her.

Cristina and Trina are both hefty girls, but while Trina dresses down in t-shirts and torn jeans, like you, Cristina wears her girth with style. She is always immaculately made up with bright lipstick, eye-catching mascara, and long dark hair draped over one shoulder and breast. She favors bright blouses and dark, tight jeans; and every day you see her, you could swear, she flashed a different kind of bracelet—silver, gold, leather, or plastic—one her wrist. And she carries herself like her nickname: La Doña.

Trina is smaller, quieter, shyer, and that first day, when she thought Cristina wasn't looking she would shoot you a secret smile. She doesn't hide her dumpy frame, exactly, but she likes to wear soft sweatshirts and extra-large t-shirts. Unlike Cristina, who raked you up and down with the same critical eye with which she'd surveyed your complex, Trina complimented you on your sloppy hand-me-downs and said that they made you look "adorable." (And she squeezed your arm when she said it.)

You're not sure why they wanted to have lunch with you, because they only talked about music and videos and night clubs, and gossiped snobbishly about classmates, including some of your friends. You mostly kept quiet, except when Cristina would ask you pointed questions about your classes, or who you hung out with, and what you liked to do for fun. Trina asked you questions too, but these were more about your family, and she cooed sympathetically about your mom being in jail and your brother being in the Marines, so that you had to live with your grandfather in a strange new town. Cristina only listened with an expression of faint contempt.

As for Marcos, he only came up in a couple of asides, when Cristina mentioned that she and he went out every Friday and Saturday night to a party or a club, and Trina said she and Marcos hung out at her place every Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

"Wha'ja think of the girls?" he asked that evening when he took you out for a bite. You said you liked them. "They like you. So I'm gonna see a lot more of you, if you wanna see me." He said this with a very long and intense look.

"I'd like that," you murmured.

"That's fine." He waited until you'd swallowed before leaning over to kiss you. "Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, I gotta be with one of them. Lotta the afternoons too. Sometimes other days. But most of the rest of the time, it's gonna be you and me." He picked up your hand, kissed it, played with it.

And that's been the pattern since, though what he meant by "it's gonna be you and me" has usually turned out to be, "it's gonna you and me, at your place before work, when you're grandpa's gone, banging each other." Sometimes he'd take you out someplace, like to the river or Suffolk Wilderness or the mall; sometimes with some of his friends—Laurent Delacroix, Alec Brown, Marc Garner; wresters and soccer and lacrosse players, mostly—and sometimes just you and him alone. But almost every time, unless one of you had to be someplace else, it would begin or end with him sliding his hot, hard cock up inside you and banging you until you'd both cum.

And Cristina and Trina both seem fine with it. Cristina even came over with boxes of contraceptives soon after you and Marcos started fucking, and explained to you how to use them, and how you needed to use them because Marcos refuses to wear a condom. "You can't have a kid," she told you in a very firm voice. "Not living here, like this. And Trina would kill you if you did." Her lip curved. "When Marcos has kids, it's gonna be Trina who's the mama. Don't ever forget that."

You also quickly learned where the lines were drawn around Cristina and Marcos. It happened when you and he and Cristina accidentally wound up at the same Fourth of July party at Marc Garner's place. You and Rebecca Torres were going to do something with Luis Castillo and some of the other band guys, but some of them knew some other guys who were going out to the Garners', so that's where you all wound up. Marcos and Cristina were already there, and the moment Cristina saw you her she turned white with fury, and a minute later Marcos was pulling you aside and telling you to leave. The next day he brought a rose when he came over to your house, and with obvious embarrassment told you that you'd have to start coordinating your social plans, so that you and Cristina never accidentally bumped into each other again when she and he were out someplace together.

And that's all that you ever figured out. No one ever explained anything to you, but you figured out how to stay out of the other girls' ways, and how to get along with them. Cristina is La Doña, and when she called or texted Marcos he'd drop you or anything else to rush out to meet her; and she's the only one he takes out to clubs and parties. Trina is Mamacita, and they play house together on weekends, with him working in her parents yard and helping her run errands. And you? You're "Bambina," and while you and Marcos are fucking each other most days of the week, Cristina and Trina are slipping you extra money or food or clothes and helping you keep the apartment up.

So is it "complicated," like you told Kenzo?

No, not really. It's just impossible to explain.

Even to yourself.

* * * * *

Sunday morning is church. It's not your idea, and you never even consented to it. It just started not long after you and Marcos started together, when Cristina declared out of nowhere that she'd be by Sunday morning to pick you up for church. It's the three of you—you, Cristina, and Trina—and of course it's Cristina's church: St. Francis Xavier. You don the demure black cotton dress that Cristina bought for Alana when she learned she had no "church clothes" and carefully brush and wind up your hair into a bun. You're a little more used to your new reflection this morning, but you still study your face with open-mouthed greed as the creases and folds of the dress settle more comfortably around you. In your church clothes you more like a doll than the "little fuck biscuit" Marcos likes to bang, but somehow that makes it more delicious. Naughtier, too.

Your grandpa is asleep on the sofa in his underwear and undershirt, and you perch anxiously by the front window to watch for Cristina, so she won't have to honk the horn and maybe wake him. The best you can say for Alana's home life is that she and her grandpa have hardly anything to do with each other and seem to go out of their way to avoid making trouble. Miguel Ocampo sometimes gets a pained look when he sees the way his granddaughter is dressed for school, and once, after catching Marcos at the apartment before he could get away, he gave her a sharp, terrifying lecture on how he'd throw her into the street if she ever got pregnant. But mostly they don't talk to each other, and you have the impression that he tailors his hours at work and after so he won't have much of a chance to see or be with her. And that (you can tell) was always fine with Alana.

Church itself is boring as usual, and the drive out with the girls is almost silent. But you can tell something is up when Cristina drops Trina off at her place first. And because Trina doesn't say anything about the wide detour Cristina has to make, you can tell that this was a plan they agreed on.

"Come sit up front with me," Cristina tells you as Trina gets out. "I'm not your chauffeur." The smile she gives when you join her is tight and businesslike. But she's a block away from Trina's before bringing up what's on her mind.

"So, you were telling Marcos that your boss is thinking of moving you off the drive-thru window," she says. You nod. "Why's that?"

"Oh," you stammer, "I think it was on account of some guys who were, um, talking to me at the window a couple of days ago."

"What were they saying?"

"It doesn't really matter."

"What were they saying, Alana?"

"Nothing, Cristina! They were just, you know, being guys. Having fun."

"Were you having fun with them?"

You gasp. "No!"

"But if they were just 'having fun' with you—"

"It wasn't because of anything I was doing!"

"So why is your boss moving you off the drive-thru?"

"Because he says he doesn't want it happening again."

Cristina has been very prim, but now she gives you a skeptical, sidelong glance.

"Is this the only time it's happened?" she asks. "Guys 'saying stuff' to you at the drive-thru?"

"No," you admit. "That's how come I know they didn't mean anything by it."

"You mean it happens a lot?"

You roll your eyes and sink deeper in your seat. "Sometimes. But I don't—"

"You keep saying 'I don't', Alana. That makes it sound like you do."

You glare at her. And when you say nothing, she continues. "Why did David Kirkham try picking you up the other day, Alana? Marcos had to straighten him out. You need to work on being a lot more careful. Because Marcos can't 'move you off the drive-thru' like your boss at work can."

Next: "Sunday in the Park with Friends" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"