The Patch: Paloma & Her Sister

She knew she'd have to snap out of it, and there were times when she thought she was close. Then the guilt of fucking her sister's husband would flood her being, drowning her self-pity and misery. Her poor sister. Hermana. Mi hermana.

I'm so sorry.

She smelled openly of nicotine and tobacco now. She'd reached a pack a day, smoking two cigarettes in a row during breaks at her hideaway, chainsmoking away from campus.

She crawled into Isabel's bed and hugged her over her blankets. She caressed her cheek and kissed the back of her head, her sister's black hair, fine and disheveled. Dirty.

"Cariño," she said.

"Oh god, you stink," Isabel said, making blaching choking sounds and burying herself deeper into her covers.

"Come down, Isabel. I'll make something to eat."

But no matter how much Paloma pleaded with sister to get out of bed, she wouldn't do it. She remained hiding under her covers.

Finally Paloma shuffled from Isabel's bed and went to the kitchen.

She moved a few pots and pans around listlessly, stared at the inside of a cabinet, and went outside to smoke.

It was during her third cigarette that she heard someone come through the sliding door. She looked up and saw her sister.

"Let me have one, chica."

Paloma hesitated only an instant before pulling a cigarette from her pack and handing it to Isabel.

They smoked in silence for a while, but the time together, the time outside, seemed to affect Isabel. Maybe it was the cigarette.

"I used to smoke in high school, Pigeon," she said. "Maybe you don't remember."

Truth to tell, Paloma hadn't paid any attention to what her older sister did back then. She had her own life, and Isabel was simply too old for Paloma to care about. She remember the fights with their mother, the long screaming matches between Isabel and her mother, ending only with Isabel slamming the front door as she left for wherever.

"I remember," Paloma said. And maybe she did.

They smoked in silence.

"There's a bag of his things upstairs. I just can't bring myself to go through it. Stuff from his accident. I don't know why I have it. Or what I'm going to do with it."

Paloma smiled sadly at her sister.

"You'll be ready one day, sister. You'll be able to go through it one day."

After a while, Isabel smashed a final butt into the wooden bench Enrique had built into the deck behind the house and went into the kitchen.

"I gave them up. I don't like drugs."

Paloma laughed to herself. It was Isabel's way. Drinking, smoking, she eyed all that with suspicion acquired with age, with maturity, the responsibility of adulthood, of parenting.

"You stay out," she said to Paloma. "I'll cook."

VII

Time passed, several days, a week, two weeks.

Life returned to the Nuñez household, a limited life, a facsimile of life. Isabel could walk. She could wake up, she found out with some surprise, and get out of bed.

She could stay out of bed, too, and that astonished her.

She could clean the house, go through the bills, go through what remained of Enrique's landscape business. She didn't know whether to keep it or to sell it, sell Enrique's tools and equipment, the equipment he kept in the landscaping shop he he ran just outside of town.

He'd bought it from a cousin, an older cousin who was getting tired of the work.

Jorge was a big help, and he took over operations.

"Don't sell it, Isabel. You'll see. Business is good. Even in the fall, business is good. You'll see."

So Isabel didn't sell.

Yet.

Paloma came by, almost every night, and by now they both sat outside, smoking cigarettes and drinking cerveza or tequila or vino, the upwelling of humor and sadness brought by alcohol as good a kind of emotion as any.

Then one night Paloma didn't drop by, and Isabel, having nothing better to do, finally decided to go through the bag in front of her closet. The bag she never touched. The bag she never moved, tainted as it was by Enrique's death.

Most of it was too trivial to notice, but then she saw his phone.

She grabbed it and turned it on, but the battery was dead. She pulled a charger from her phone and plugged it into Enrique's, plopped down on her bed and opened his phone, looking through the calls.

A lot of calls from Isabel, some from Paloma, a lot, a lot of customer calls, Isabel supposed.

She opened his photos, excited to be able to see his face again, pics he'd taken of the family. She scrolled through everything. A few pics surprised her. She wondered why they were there. Pics of Paloma. But by herself, not with the family. Isabel wondered when they were taken. The she saw the video files. The folder was empty except for one video, and when Isabel played it, she played it again. She played it a third time, because her eyes were lying to her, and because no such thing could be possible.

But it was Paloma's head bobbing up and down, and Paloma's mouth sucking on the cock phone, sucking it deep into her whore mouth, slurping the cock like the slut she was, and it was Enrique's voice Isabel heard.

"That's right you dirtly little whore," the voice of Enrique said. "Take that cock into your greedy little whore mouth."

The words seemed to have driven Paloma crazy, and she renewed her attack on Enrique's cock with vigor. And then Isabel saw how the cock went still, Paloma stopped moving her mouth up and down, and how Enrique, with a last effort shoved his cock deep into her mouth while groaning into the phone.

She couldn't see it come out, but Isabel had no doubt.

Not the way Paloma slowly started sucking the cock again to Enrique's groans, almost painful and pitiable.

"Oh god, puta. Oh god. Oh god."

That whore of her sister had gulped down every last drop of her dead husband's semen.

VIII

What did she think was going to happen, Paloma cursed at herself.

It was another two weeks or more since she went to Isabel's house only to find her sister once again bundled in her covers. Isabel didn't speak. But Paloma saw the phone. She turned it on and saw the video Enrique had made of the last blowjob he'd ever get.

Then Isabel spoke.

"Get out. Get out of here, you fucking bitch. You fucking dirty cheating whore."

Paloma fled.

Every word Isabel hurled at her was true, and she couldn't protest, couldn't defend herself.

She was a fucking whore. La puta la más puta de las putas. Claro que sí.

Paloma stared blankly at Mi Corazón: el Fuego y la Selva.

She was up to two packs a day now. Chainsmoking as soon as she got home. Her mouth burned, and her throat chafed, but she didn't care. Putas like her didn't matter. Putas like her could rot in hell.

Sor Juana, now enslaved by La Mujer Salvaje, moved about the bruja's hut in a white diaphanous gown, her pregnant body clearly outlined beneath the transparent fabric. Her tits were swollen and heavy, and she padded to the bruja's bed, where La Mujer Salvage embraced her, stroked her swollen belly, and kissed her tenderly on the mouth.

"Mi corazón," she said. "Mi corazón encantado."

She picked up the pink box, still unopened, and wondered whether she should try one of the patches.

Just to see if they helped.

That girl Jessica had asked her about them several times lately, always seeming to pop out of nowhere, always showing a lot of skin, despite the cooling weather, and always looking at Paloma a little too lecherously.

As a feminista, claro, Paloma didn't mind dykes.

But as a woman, they made her stomach lurch.

If you could speak of the biggest dyke on campus, if such a thing were so, then Jessica would be the biggest dyke on campus.

Paloma kept looking at the TV.

At least Sor Juana and the bruja were getting some action.

It had been a little more than a month since Enrique passed, and Paloma hadn't fucked anyone since that day.

She was getting itchy.

Miserable and itchy.

IX

Finally Isabel called.

Camila and Angela had spun out of control, and Isabel needed help. Even from her whore of a sister, she needed help. That cunt, that puta was the only family around here, and the only one who seemed to exercise any degree of influence over the girls.

For some reason, they listened to her.

For some reason, they listened to Tía Puta.

Tía Panocha.

Tía Cocksucker.

Isabel paced the wooden deck, smoking her enésimo cigarette.

That fucking bitch got me hooked on these. She fucked my husband and got me hooked on drugs.

She was in no mood to curb her hyperbole.

"I need help," she said. "We need to talk. I don't think. I don't think I can ever forgive you, but I need your help. You owe me. Please come over. Por favor, hermana mía. Las hijas son locas."

So Paloma went over.

She didn't have a choice; she needed to see her sister, needed to know they could still return to something like normalcy. That something like family was still possible.

When she saw Isabel, she doubted anything like that could occur now.

Isabel hated her.

She could see the hatred in her eyes.

But Isabel held the tongue of her hatred, and they both stared at each other in the livingroom, Paloma on the couch, Isabel perched in Enrique's armchair.

And for a second, for a brief moment, Paloma felt like a kid again, a niñita facing the stern reproach of a stern parent, her stern mother, regal and proud and tolerating no misbehavior.

Oh, she'd misbehaved, all right.

And seeing Isabel's look, so much like their mother's, she knew a pretense of tears and sorrow would not get her out of it.

Paloma swallowed and looked at her lap.

"I'm. I'm so."

"Don't," Isabel rebuked her. "Just don't."

Paloma nodded solemnly, trying not to laugh at her absurd situation despite the awful weight of guilt dragging her spirits down. It had been decades since anyone had sat her down to scold her. Mastering her mood, her emotions, she listened to Isabel's litany of complaints about her daughters, about Camila and Angelan.

"I know they're drinking," she said. "Even Angela. Even Angela comes home drunk now. And I know they're with boys. And I know what they're doing with those boys. A mother knows, Paloma. A mother knows."

Suddenly Isabel erupted in tears, huge convulsions that shook her body, and she threw her head in her hands, trying to wave off her sister, but her sister wouldn't hear of it.

Paloma rushed to Isabel's side, the soft whoosh of a dove in flight, and she knelt beside her sister's chair, throwing her arms around her sister's neck as the older sibling collapsed in her worry, her grief, and the frustration of parental impotence. It was a momentary lapse in hostilities.

Isabel quickly recovered herself and pushed Paloma away from her, but the younger sister remained kneeling beside Isabel's chair, refusing to let go of her sister's left hand.

Isabel glanced askance at Paloma.

She's trying, Isabel told herself. The little whore's trying to make up for. Being a whore.

The betrayal stung, accompanied as it was by inescapable feelings of guilt, of worthlessness. Had she been a better wife. Had she been sexier, hotter, more romantic, more understanding, more attentive, then maybe her slut of a sister wouldn't have been able to seduce her husband.

She looked at Paloma's full, sensual lips, and she recalled Enrique's wandering eye.

And very faintly, very gently, almost imperceptibly, she squeezed Paloma's hand.

God, she hated her.

But she could understand her too.

Paloma stayed kneeling after the fashion of a woman at rest, legs tucked under her as she sat half on her hips and half on her ass.

No, Isabel thought. I need Tía Cunt now more than ever. For Angela and Camila.

So Isabel told Paloma all about the girls, how they went out, how they came home, drunk or stoned or worse, clothes torn, hair disheveled, reeking and angry.

"I need to smoke," Isabel said, getting up from her chair. "Join me?"

They went out to the back deck and lighted their cigarettes, trying to relax, trying to calm themselves, trying to find a peace that would not descend.

Finally, Isabel threw an unfinished cigarette onto the deck and ground it into the wood with the toes of her shoe.

"This isn't working," she shouted, exasperated. "I can't believe you got me hooked on again after all these years."

It was an unfair accusation, but Paloma accepted it.

"There is something," Paloma replied, digging into her purse. "I mean. I've tried everything. Hice todo, hermana. Nothing's worked. Nada. This girl at school, she was in the Spanish class I teach last year, she gave me a box of patches. She said they really work. I haven't used them yet. I mean. It's kind of weird. But if you think. I mean, if you want to give them a try. I'll try them with you."

Paloma carefully opened the pink cellophane of the shiny pink box, opened the box, and handed a shiny square of pink foil to her sister. She retrieved one for herself.

"What, now? Eres loca, Pigeon. You don't know what they'll do."

"It must work, Isabel. She used to smoke with me all the time, but now I never see her smoking, and she told me she doesn't even feel the faintest desire to smoke. Or to use any kind of nicotine. I think we should try it."

Isabel nodded.

"Where do we put it?"

Paloma turned around and pulled the back of her shirt up to her neck, exposing her back to Isabel.

"Put it somewhere just below my shoulder, and I put one on you in the same place. Make it hard to get so we won't be tempted to take it off."

Paloma yelped and shivered at the freezing contact of the pink patch, but a feeling of warmth, calm and soothing, quickly replaced the cold.

Isabel turned around and the sister's repeated the performance, Isabel yelping in her turn at the cold sensation.

She dropped the hem of her shirt, turned to face Paloma, suddenly grinned and squeezed her sister in an affectionate embrace.

"I hate you so much, Pigeon. I don't think I can ever forgive you."

She let Paloma go.

"But I love you too, hermana."

Just then the front door slammed, and the sisters heard the loud voices of the girls.

Camila and Angela were home.

X

They were both clearly drunk.

Angela leaned against Camila for support, and when Isabel and Camila entered the living room, looking serious and upset, both teenagers burst out in derisive laughter.

At once Isabel broke into a long complaint, her tone agrieved and hurt.

It only made the girls lash out even more derisively.

"Oh god, Mom. You're so pathetic. Angela and I were just having a little fun. Could you be any more dramatic?"

Isabel continued to remonstrate with her daughters, but they just shrieked with laughter as they stumbled past the distraugt woman.

"You're such an idiot, Mom," Angela hissed at her.

Suddenly Paloma flew across the room and stood between mother and daughter. She faced Angela sternly, fixing the girl with a look utterly different from any expression Angela had ever seen their aunt wear.

"Cállate, pendeja!"

Camila would have laughed, Angela wanted to laugh, but the laughter died in her throat, seeing the look in Paloma's eyes. Isabel, moving around and seeing her sister, recognized it.

Paloma wasn't the first in the family to wear it.

Mamá Pilar used it to maximum effect on Paloma, but Isabel remembered it well. It had daunted her, too, before her own rebellion became too strong to resist. It had never been used on the hijas, and they didn't know what to make of it.

It shocked them a little of their intoxication, enough to get them upstairs, enough to get them if not subdued, then at least calm enough to go to bed, quiet enough to put away the seemingly inexhaustible supply of anger they now carried at all moments.

When Paloma, once again Tía Pigeon, closed the door on Angela she bumped into Isabel.

"I can't do this without you, sister," she said. "Please. Can you spend the night? Would you spend the night?"

It was Friday, Paloma had no class to teach in the morning, and she could get new clothes the next day.

So she settled into the guest bedroom and when she went to the bathroom, Isable showed her a new toothbrush on the bathroom counter.

The girls' clothes littered the bathroom floor.

"You'll have to share with the girls tomorrow morning," she warned as she picked up the laundry. "Get up early and get in first. Or you'll have to wait forever."

The next morning she got up late and would have had to wait forever, but her impatience drove her to her sister's bathroom, where she took a long bath. Drying herself off, she found clothes laid out for her on the bed. Isabel's clothes. Jeans, panties, socks, blouse, bra. A little loose for Paloma, but they'd do.

They were clean.

And that's just about all that really counted.

But Paloma skipped the bra.

XI

A new routine quickly established itself in the Nuñez home. Paloma returned every night after class. She rolled a big luggage case behind her that first night, unpacked her things in the guest bedroom, insisted on helping Isabel in the kitchen, and absolutely refused to let the hijas leave the house.

"What?" screamed Camila. "You can't do that!"

"We don't have to do what you say!"

But they came to the dinner table all the same, and if Isabel snatched the briefest glimpse of a smile on the lips of Camila or Angela, she bit her own lip and guarded her optimism, knowing the irrepressible mood swings of teenagers.

That night they all watched a movie in the living room, all of them on the sofa, Enrique's chair empty. It wasn't a happy time, it wasn't a joyful experience by any means. But it was an experience, and they were having it together. As a family.

Isabel couldn't have been more grateful.

She boxed her anger and her hurt into a little cardboard box, drew the twine around the package, neatly tied it, and shoved it into the furthest reaches of a bottom drawer behind sweatpants she'd never wear.

All week long the house regained its fragile appearance of normalcy. The girls took to Paloma, were genuinely glad of her presence, and genuinely glad too of the imposed discipline, as easy it would have been for them to discard it, ignore it, and continue to go wild.

The truth was that their behavior had scared them; they were their father's daughters, and he had raised them well. He would have been disappointed in the both of them, could he have known. Paloma had made them remember themselves, and the drunkenness, the going out stopped. They had exams to study for, homework to do, grades to maintain, and futures to plan.

Two things, no three things surprised Paloma that week.

First, her itchiness was gone.

All that horniness, all that need to feel a man's body over her, under her, inside her -- it all vanished. Not that she felt numb or sedated or dimmed. If anything she felt more alive, more aware, quicker, sharper.

Second, her nicotine cravings vanished.

Not dampened, not dulled, not curtailed, not eased. They vanished, just like her sex drive. She didn't even feel the need to put a cigarette, a vape pen in her mouth. Not even a little chicle de nicotina. No need for nicotine or smoking at all. Nothing. Nada.

Zilch.

Thirdly, and much more importantly and much to her delighted astonishment, Isabel was also hooked on Mi Corazón.

It was on Thursday that she found Isabel sitting on the couch, eyes glued to the television, wearing loose shorts and a baggy t-shirt, under which her large boobs wobbled freely.

Paloma didn't really take note of that.

How they both had just stopped wearing a bra.

How they both just pitter-pattered around the house with their girls hanging free and easy, covered only in the cloth of whatever shirt they wore.

They were kind of like a married couple by this point.

In a way.

Isabel and Paloma in the kitchen, getting dinner ready for the kids, or Isabel having dinner ready for Paloma, making the kids wait for Paloma to get home from a late class. She even fussed after her on Wednesday, when Paloma had to go to the University to teach her evening class.