Catherine

            I was home, busy and drinking coffee by the mugs. It’s been a hectic week in which we didn’t even have time to enjoy ourselves properly. Owner has been solving problems nonstop, which leaves little time even for breakfast with us, despite Scarlet’s efforts in the kitchen. Shade is buried in a very complex lawsuit that keeps her wake all nights, she’s miserable and it’s starting to show. Yesterday we were all watching TV, when Shade came from her room, to take a break from the papers, and cuddled with me and Scarlet to watch Scarlet’s Sci Fi. Before we noticed, Shade was fast asleep cuddled to us. She just collapsed from exhaustion.

            Scarlet is Scarlet, she has the most stable life of the whole family, which means she torments my whole days mondays and thursdays, because she has nothing to do at home, then, wednesdays, the business starts picking up and Emails and phone calls start becoming work. Tuesdays and Fridays, she and her partner turn the kitchen into a no-go warzone, because that’s when the heavy catering for business starts, and it goes that way until Sunday afternoon. There were parties and munches Scarlet missed because of business, but she will rather not enjoy herself than not follow a contract with a client. Then, monday she’ll just be around the house recovering, and making sure I have toys in me while at home, and having a blast of a time while I try to work from my home office. I’m lucky I focus better when horny. But I’m unlucky I write a lot worse when bound.

            And I am on early design stages of my first big architectural project since I left the firm, an italian restaurant downtown. The owner looks like a character from a mob movie, on his late 50’s, big guy, when he laughs, it’s loud and clear. When he’s serious, you think someone will come off the kitchen with a machine gun. Some famous mob tunes play in my head all the time. Oh, and all this jokes about the Sous Chef being a “finocchio” ( faggot ) are incredibly rude.

            For the first contacts, I even felt that first coward instinct of leaving the collar home, and going in plain non-rubbery clothes, but I know better. No, not that I fear repercussions at home, Shade wears nilla clothing all the time, and with a business suit, the collars could actually pass for expensive jewelry. No, I just have a much better grasp of who I am now, and it’s not Scarlet, but also, not a girl even wants to pretend being nilla. Besides, I’m an architect, not a lawyer. I was scared the first few moments, as I got a good look up and down, until I heard him say “The girls these days… “ but the conversations took on.

            This client came from a friend of a friend of Scarlet, who is gonna aid me with her Chef expertise. But this is not a lifestyle client, and nilla clients are always tricky to balance, always that ongoing fear that the wrong word, the wrong move, the wrong clothes will spark prejudice against you and you’re going to lose a much needed gig, and much needed pay. My family has been very supportive, but I don’t want to be a burden, and if I can’t make enough to just walk out if I want to, I may be in the position of staying not because I want to, but because I have no choice. My kneeling is only of any value if I can stand up. So, I don’t want to lose this client.

            And it’s been three weeks now on the design stage of a new restaurant. Interior design, on an older building, a total retrofit project. With some green features I’m really proud of. The work itself is fantastic, and Don Guillermo, as I started calling my client, is the sort of energetic man who waves his arms a lot while talking, everything is in big gestures, his voice is clear and loud, if he wants to say something, he makes himself heard, a sort of bigger than life man you’d love for a grandfather or maybe your crazy uncle who owns a restaurant. And I’m trying to put that into the design. Which is not easy.

            Oh, and he changes his mind a lot. Things set in a meeting this week change by next week. A wall color we decided upon because I could prove it would work better to creating the atmosphere with the wood paneling, gets changed without me knowing.

            “Why is this wall white?” – Don Guillermo asks with his hands waving hard and fast.

            “Because of the wooden paneling, we talked it last week, Don”.

            “NO NO NO! No White! Put some creammy color, me and the wife went to restaurant downtown last night, very classy, had creamy colors on the walls, and I think that will work”.

            Yeah, and whenever I insist on a point, he reminds me he’s been in the restaurant business for 40 years, and his family before that in Sicily. And his accent is so heavy and loaded. It’s hard not to be pissed at him when he does that, but it’s hard not to love him too. He’s plain, clear, honest, speaks out his mind. Even when he calls Carlos, the mexican Sous, “finocchio”, which pisses him off. And that’s a joke all on it’s own, because at first Carlos didn’t speak any italian, and he felt it was a compliment. Then, after a few weeks in the restaurant, someone explained to him it actually meant “maricón”, in non-mexican words, faggot. From that day on, the result is Carlos starting cursing in very fast, angry, foul mouthed spanish, and the angrier he gets, the funnier it gets, and it became a sort of inner joke in the kitchen, really. Don Guillermo is an ass, but is a very fatherly ass. I’d never fit in this place, I am fortunate I don’t have to. But as an outsider I have my guilty giggles on something that is so wrong, and so funny, mostly, because Carlos in the end doesn’t mind with both of them oblivious to how toxic it all is. “Boys being Boys”, I am glad I am not.

            My days have been like this, trying to design something for a demanding client who thinks he knows best, and balance all this. I’m glad Scarlet is a premium chef and her coffee is always delicious. There’s always tempting good food in the kitchen. And warm kisses in her mouth, and shoulder massages when I am tense. Did I tell you how much I love my big sister?

            I had glue in my fingers, from trying to put together a final model of how it’s gonna look when finished. I’m pretty confident it’s not gonna need to be redone. The computer 3D models are easier, but there’s something ancient and magical on handling your project with your hands, and there’s also the fact Don Guillermo has very little patience or attention for seeing things in the computer. So far, it’s been sketches and sketches, a talent I’m happy I spent years perfecting, because I was no good at drawing when I was a little girl, and now I’m almost sure it’s gonna be the final one. The phone rings, and I pick it up. Scarlet is walking in the room by now, peeking over my shoulder to check what’s going on.

            “Goodwin Architecture and Sebras Cathering, Jennifer speaking, how may I help you?” I manage while holding the phone in my shoulder and applying another table to the floor with a pair of tweezers, before the glue dries.

            “Good afternoon. I’m phoning in the interest of the Estate of Charles Spencer-Smith. I’m looking for A Charles Spencer-Smith Jr.” – a very posh, male voice replies, possibly a lawyer.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, there’s nobody with this name here”.

            I was about to hang up when he said something that made me drop the phone.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, these days he goes by the name of ‘Catherine Sanders’….” and the phone was on the floor, and I was frozen shocked in place.

            Scarlet instantly asked me what was wrong, and picked up the phone asking me if somebody had died. She started talking a bit to the lawyer… but I was feeling like I took a punch to my guts, and feeling like puking, and went out of the office space and into the living room. She came to me afterwards, as if she wasn’t liking what was going on. I looked at her, seeking for some sense in the world that had just collapsed under my feet.

            An assholish “Shade… is a guy? Did you KNEW?” was the one thing I could let out. The response was a very hard five fingered slap in my face. It hurt. It made my head ring. It was well deserved. She started crying of anger.

            “She is our sister, and you better ask yourself if you love her or not, and if the lips you felt against yours were that of anything but a woman who loves you! Now her father is dead, and her cursed family will want to throw all their shit at us all over again, and I will not have that in our home after so much work we put to end the whole lot of shit they threw on her over all these years!”

            She meant every word. She was holding back. She is right, of course. I was still shocked as she went to the phone to call Owner. I must have spent the rest of the day in shock. Owner got home. An odd silence took over, as we bid time and watched TV. Shade finally got home, and Scarlet brought her to the kitchen, and gave her the news. All of the news, including, my shock. Owner got up, and went to comfort her, while I could hear the sobbing and crying, I knew, from both of them, Shade asking how on earth they could find her, how on earth they got our phone number, that they were a curse she would never get rid of.

            Owner tried to comfort her, say she was safe, this is her true family. She still cried, not because her father died, but because a very deep, very painful, nearly deadly wound had open up again, and the flies and maggots were already running for the feast.

            I didn’t get up. I didn’t know what to say. Where to stand. I’m still shocked and shaken, mostly with myself, my own reactions and my own renewed awareness of my own prejudice. My whole notion of who she was changed with that instant piece of news. She felt now as someone new, some stranger. I review our lovemaking searching for tips that could have ratted her. The small breasts, those small sensuous breasts, her tall presence, her pussy. I could find nothing, but now, every minor scar, every detail of her body that she had and I didn’t became a sudden evidence I ignored. Meanwhile, I hated that my brain went into such places, and a deep shame took over. I was split between shock, disgust for myself and a deep sense of shame.

            My state of derailment is suddenly broken when they leave the kitchen, and Shade looks down at me, tears ruining her makeup, her face red, and her eyes red and flushed.

            “I think we need to talk, little sister.”

            Now her lovely angelic face seems a bit masculine, as my eyes now search for odd angles that could have given her away. Her voice seems to sound just one tone deeper than it was before. Everything about her seems to have changed, yet, she’s still the same Shade I met and fell in love with. She takes me by the hand and we go into Owner’s studio, and close the door. This is a private talk.

            “So…”, she says, unable to sit down, walking around in a continuous circle and whipping persistent tears.

            “So…?” I mumble.

            We stare at each other for what seemed to be forever… she cries again and sits down on a sofa. She starts cursing, saying to herself this is not fair, everything was perfect, life was good, this wasn’t fair. I still look at her… her small breasts, that I loved to suck, my mind was shutting down on confusion and fear. But I knew it was nothing compare to the suffering this news had just unleashed in her.

            There’s a knock in the door, Scarlet brings in some tea in a silver plate… silently, we all exchange stares… she says she’ll be in the living room if we need her… we don’t answer, we don’t need to, she goes for Owner while we have some time to settle on our own.

            “Why?” I ask, breaking the silence.

            “Why what?”, she replies.

            “Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me…”

            “Tell you what? I am a woman! You met me as a woman. You loved me as a woman. For as long as you’ve known me, I am nothing more or less than a woman. The pimples, the stretch marks, even the piercing in my pussy lips! What’s there to tell you?”

            I don’t know how to feel. I’m being an asshole. A very mean shallow person. I’m putting the whole of who I know she is aside, because of one detail of her I didn’t know.

            “You could have told me you were…” … I added. I don’t know where I am getting to. The world stopped making sense hours ago.

            “Why would that have mattered?” she finds in a very heartbroken voice, crying again.

            The tea is getting cold. We make no efforts to reach for it. She sits down with me, takes my hand, and presses it against her pussy. “This is real, this is me. This is what matters.”

            I start crying.

            She tells me about her past… about her childhood, about her teenage years, the pain, the torment, the anguish, the fears. Then, she quit lawschool, long before being trapped into a graduation party with a name that isn’t hers. Before signing the yearbook. And the collapse. Leaving her family, running away, starting therapy, while working as a clerk in a video store. The hours went by as she tells me everything. And each pain, each suffering, each fall, each rise. Then saving money, from a lowly paying job. The name change, taking her grandmother’s last name. Then, the surgery, and finally meeting Owner and Scarlet, their support to resume lawschool and graduate. I arrive. And her fears. And the haunting fear of ever being seen as less than she is, or something other than she is, because of how she was born, instead of who she is.

            Everytime she meets someone new, for so many years, the fears of being tossed away. Every nude photo, an effort in self confidence. And know the scrutiny I placed her under, is nothing compared to what she goes everyday when she looks in the mirror, because even if I tried to find her past in her eyes, she on the other hand, knows exactly where to look, and what to find. And that’s a torment that never goes away.

            And instead of the story of a guy, who was fooling me, I come in touch with the story of the strongest woman I have ever met in my life. A story of maddening challenges, conquest, suffering, pain, glory, happiness, scars and triumph. I would never have managed to face what she did. To act as she did. To be so true and honest to who she was. To who she has always been. To some extent, it’s no surprise she’s so reserved, and she has that mark of suffering most tormented souls carry with them. But she is at the same time so loving, and so caring.

            I’m burned by the shame of the feelings I had, the petty shallow prejudice and idiocy I let grow inside of me in these last hours, as Shade dispels everything and shines a light into the darkness of my soul once more. I start crying, and collapse on her lap. She’s also crying. But this is her curse, and she had to support me, on a moment that was much harder for her than it was for me. A knock on the door, and the face of our very worried Owner shows on the slit. Shade nods that it’s all right, and Owner closes it again and leaves us alone.

            “This is like a curse. It’s like the Fleur-de-Lis, branded on my skin never to be removed. Everytime I think it has been cemented in the past and I can just live life, and be happy, and not care about what was, it comes back to ruin everything.”

            “I’m sorry I was… an asshole. I…” words failed me again.

            “You may leave. You may stay. You may do whatever you want. But if you truly love me, you will never see me as anything other than who I am. If you cannot see me as just a woman you love, and your sister, than you don’t love me at all.” she said.

            I nodded and told her how much I loved her. And how ashamed I am. She said prejudice is this evil ghost that lives in the heart of every human being, and preys on the misunderstanding and fear of all. But only the very weak and very feeble minded can listen to it. And it uses their bodies, their voices, feeding on their fears and hatred, as much as they let it, until nothing remains but an empty shell filled with hatred and desire to spread misery. You just have to let it slip a little and you’re doomed.

            The rest of the conversation was about her family. Her father was a very rich men in the US apparently. Despite her love for the court, she’s a lawyer who always takes on defending minorities, so, she joined the public attorney’s office, much like the future designed for her by her family. She attended an Ivy League university. Her every step was an attempt of her father to recreate himself into her. Her ever growing suffering was irrelevant, and an attempt to talk and expose her suffering, ended in her father wanting to lock her up in an insane asylum if she was serious about being who she has always been. Her mother is also another piece of work, a cold heartless bimbo whose marriage was a contest of who could inflict the biggest suffering to the other side.

            Shade ran away, with the clothes on her body, and little more, to start over again. No traces linking her to her family. She eventually took over her as her last name that of her grandmother when singled, the only family member she remember being a sane, normal, loving person, who maybe would accept her as who she is. She found a job, and started fending for herself, and working her way up in life, from scratch, without them. Free from them, she said. And she tried her best to stay away, and remain free from the misery that was that life.

            But, now that her father is dead, the rest of the family is fucked, because she’s possibly been cast out of the testament, but without her signing that she acknowledges it, the money is gonna be stuck. They found her, and they will do everything to get that signature. First, a formal request, then, possibly a bribe, a payout with a cut of the money, to sign and release the inheritance, and then, of course, threats and blackmail if needed. Like any person who is related to old money, they’re also linked to the old ethics of their pirate and barbarian ancestors. She said old money is always built on the corpses of many generations of poor people. Out of spite, she would just like to sign it all to charity, leaving them fuckers needing to find a job, and work for a change. But they’re not real people and don’t even know it.

            The tears dry, the eyes ache, our noses are running and we’re out of tissue paper. It’s late, and we don’t feel like sleeping. We talk. And talk. And for the first time in months, I know my sister better than I ever felt possible to know everyone. And I also tell her of my past, which is pretty boring normal stuff. She says she envies my life, so normal, so daddy’s little girl. So free to choose. So free to be. So free of the curse of having to move heaven and earth just to earn the very basic right to be who you are. She said in her life, she’s always fucked, there’s always some hidden slap in the face, at every turn of the way. She got reserved, she got fearful and scared. She would love to be like me, free to get up and show myself to the world, without someone showing up with some news from a hideous past, and ruining you day. She’s lost friends. She’s lost everything so many times. It’s like living every day afraid of being tossed to burn in the stake.

            And now she has us. She has family. Not only those in this house, but many in other households, all of us linked as one big extended family. But she reminds me not everyone knows. It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter anyway.

            “It doesn’t matter…” I say. The tea is cold. We’re wide awake. She’s playing with my hair, while I look into her eyes from my position in her lap. “What are you gonna do?”

            “I don’t know… I will have to travel there I guess. Owner will likely come with me. This is the worst moment, Owner is so busy, and I’m so busy. But if I don’t go, they’ll keep pushing and pressing and probing into our lives. You don’t know how those people are when it’s about money. When my grandmother died, I was the only one to cry at the funeral. Alone. I cried so much, so hard, for all I wanted to tell her, and couldn’t. All I knew, but didn’t understand. But I was alone, my father and mother, along with my uncles, were drinking and smoking and laughing and telling jokes. It was a party for them. They only stopped laughing because of money, like dogs over a bone, like when someone wanted some expensive jewelry because it was a memento, but they only saw the cash. My father actually asked my mother’s sister, how much she would pay for a ring, because he insisted it all should be sold, and the money split, the bastard wouldn’t accept one less penny from a fucking ring that was worthless to him. Money. For him, for my mother, for most of the family, it wasn’t my grandmother there in the coffin, it was a lease on property now available for the taking, and they negotiated the sharing. You can be sure there will be a driver in our driveway waiting for me, in case I don’t go. And I won’t have that.” she said in a somber tone of voice.

            “But don’t you want to know if he left anything for you? You could be rich right now…” I tried, but she cut me short and dry.

            “You haven’t been listening, have you?! They’re not people! He wasn’t my father. My family is HERE between these walls. What I left behind was just pain and sorrow. He was a heartless bastard. If he had been actually my father for once, I would be happy to have a memento and nothing more, the mementos, the memories are all that matters. I can pay my bills, I have a good job I love, we are happy, I have you all. Nothing they can offer holds any value, I won’t play their game or be on their level, fighting for bones like dogs”.

            I kissed her hand and smiled “Those be juicy bones”.

            She lightly slapped my forehead saying “silly”.

            And then there was silence. The odd silence, often broken by her saying it’s not fair. We came out, Owner and Scarlet were also sleepless, Scarlet in the sofa writing recipes in her notebook, while Owner was watching TV. We sat with them, sharing Owner’s lap and legs, tears dried on everyone’s face.

            This pain. This shared pain we can all feel. This is not fair.

 

            …

 

            Shade is in the US with Owner, I’m home with Scarlet. We wanted to go, but Shade would rather spare us from what’s gonna happen there. Owner went because Shade knows better than say no to her Owner as well. We haven’t heard from them today, this is the day the testament will be read and all papers will be signed. Owner said her family is a real disgusting bunch.

            I’m spending this morning with Don Guillermo, presenting the finished project. He asked for some coffee for me, with grappa, for a pick me up, after saying I should sleep better and asked me if I was having problems at home, because I wasn’t smiling and joking as usual. We sat at the table closest to the kitchen door, which has become our unofficial meeting table now. He looked a very long time at me. I was in a business suit, made of latex, yes, but it was a business suit. But he always seemed off when I showed up in shiny clothes.

            “So, what they say about you in your family, it is true?”, after something of a pause to think.

            “That I am part of a family in which I am bound to the will of my loved one?”, I replied, trying to stay clear of hot waters, as this gig is important, and I spent a month on it so far, and I want it. It would be great to my portfolio, and I just love them so much, it’s the sort of gig you really love.

            “That you are a slave, yes… is it true?”, he asks leaning forward, looking me straight in the eye. Always straight answers. To the point of being rude sometimes.

            I touch the collar on my neck, smile, and worry I am about to lose this contract, but I have to be true and honest for those who matter most. We are one family, a true one, I won’t bring shame to them by saying we’re any less. “Yes, that is true.”

            He laughs, leaning back on his seat, takes a long sip of his grappa and says something that shocks me more than the laughter. “Well, maybe I should offer to buy you then, could be much cheaper than what I pay you for this design!”

            I start laughing so hard, the coffee I was sipping comes off my nose and just doesn’t coat the  table because I cover my face. And the evil spell of prejudice is broken, just like that. It seems Shade was right all along, it’s very smell, and only preys on the feeble and weak. On the coward. And if you stand your ground, and show who you are, without shame, not hiding, beyond shame, people just accept who you are, and what you are, and in the big schemes of our problems and pains, it’s not a big deal.

            I’m not burning on a stake. At least, not today.

 

PS: Oh yes, there were still design changes. I’m pretty sure he will want them until the day of the grand opening. But what can I say, he reminds me of the grandpa I wish I had.