Four Faces
L. Vocem
Sequestrum
Winter 2026
Today I’m Inga. Today I’m from Sweden. Inga likes wearing white. White pants, white skirts, white blouses, white jackets. Boots, of course, white. Her hair should be platinum blonde. Well, shit, that is not going to work unless I go to the drugstore and buy something and make sure I don’t burn my hair. That also means I need a Brazilian. I don’t want to shave myself, I want it done right. Carlos will understand. So I text him about it. He quickly responds that he is in a sales and marketing meeting. I tell him he’s going to like it. He takes a while but responds okay. It’s his credit card. I don’t like to abuse it. I only use it when he has authorized me. The kids are at daycare. Today I will be Inga – Alice Giovanna Ferguson is taking the day off. He is going to love it.
There’s an art to being Inga. There’s an attitude about life. There’s a happiness that feels eternal, and there’s also a lascivious side. I may have to go to a tanning salon as well. Carlos won’t mind. It’s part of the package. He is going to love it. Unless he has to work late, again. This recurrence of events is beginning to annoy me. Who is in those late work sessions? What are they doing? Marsha, the designer, may be there. Goth Marsha, with her tattoos, weird haircut, army boots, black everywhere. She is cute, I do not worry about her. Then there’s Sheila from marketing. She’s skinny, with perky boobs. She is Carlos’ type. I’ve seen the way she looks at him. I can imagine the way he looks back. I do not like it.
I pick a pair of white pants. I remove the pullover I wore to take the kids to daycare and become Inga. I squeeze into the pants. I do not wear any panties. They will give me lines. I hate lines. I take a deep breath, I’m in. They feel good. I find a particular bra that Carlos bought me. It lifts, has some lace, it’s black, so it will show thru the white blouse. I like it.
I get my Brazilian done, then go to Giorgio and have my hair done much lighter. He warns me that if I keep doing too many things it will fry my hair and he will have to cut it all off. I don’t want that. While I sit covered in aluminum foil, Giorgio repeats his usual overused jokes and some of the other ladies laugh. All I can think about is my crotch. How they apply the wax, how they look at you, tell you something funny or stupid to distract you and rip, then produce a cute smile. It burns, it tingles, but it feels good. The things we do for our men. Well, not really. I do this for me. For Inga, for whatever is left of Giovanna after all the shit that has come down. Carlos has been good to me and the kids. But after all the crap that my ex pulled, I wish I could trust. I want to trust Carlos, but I surely cannot trust myself. If only I could explain all these things to him.
When I talk to Giorgio, he laughs and rolls his eyes.
“Giovanna, what’s up with the accent?” he asks, with this mischievous face, like saying, I know honey what you are up to.
On my way home, I pull down the top of my VW and turn the radio up as loud as I can and sing what comes out. Men in other cars look at me. I don’t care. That’s the thing that Luca never understood. He would get so jealous. He would scream “No seas una perra, you don’t do this type of thing here in Spain.” He was so wrong. I’m not in Spain anymore.
I arrive at the house. I clean the kids’ rooms and vacuum the place. I send a text to Carlos saying that Inga wants to see him. I send him a selfie where he can see one side of my face and my hot blonde hair. I unbutton my pants way down, but not all the way, and send him another selfie. He responds, “Mmmmm.”
Carlos brings home white carnations. He knows they are Inga’s favorites. While we have dinner with the kids, Giovanna takes over in autopilot. The kids love the new hair. Carlos is quite good to them. Megan loves him and asks a million questions, while Jean-Michel plays with the Wii. After kids’ showers, we read to them in bed.
Finally, we’re alone. We go into the garage where Carlos has set up a painting studio. He pulls out a little video camera and starts to ask me questions. How long have I been in the States? I answer in Inga’s accent. What’s my favorite type of music? At one point he gets close to me and unbuttons my pants and places his hand in.
“Smooth as a baby’s butt,” Carlos says.
“You’re such a pedophile.”
He goes lower. I’m so wet, but I gently pull his hand out.
“Slow down cowboy.”
“Inga, Inga, Inga.”
#
Today I’m plain Alice. I hated that name since I was a kid, so in Junior High, I decided to go by my second name, Giovanna. I asked my mother why was I named Alice. It was my father’s idea, and whatever the great Dr. Ferguson said, it was law. So why Giovanna and not Sibeli, my mother’s Turkish name? She grew up watching Italian romantic comedies.
The problem with Giovanna is that everyone wants to shorten it to Gina, or Gio, or Vanna, or even Anna. I found it so repugnant that I spent half my adolescent years telling them NOT to shorten my name. Period. At least when I went to study in Spain they would not shorten the name, and just called me Giovanna. I miss Spain, I miss the friends I made there, the language, the history. I love that men give you piropos and whistle at you. Other American girls felt insulted, but not me. I loved it.
Plain Giovanna likes flower dresses, blouses buttoned to the top and comfortable cotton underpants, and low shoes and sandals. I put Inga’s blonde hair in a bun, tie a scarf around it, and head to work. I’m one of the receptionists at a dentist’s office. I answer the phones, set up and confirm appointments, and greet people as they arrive at our lobby. I wish I could work full-time, but my doctor told me not to push it. Before I met Carlos, I couldn’t even talk, and I went through six months of vocal cord therapy until I finally regained my voice.
They say I have a radiant smile that illuminates a room. But other than a smile, Giovanna is all work and precision. I answer the phone with a smile and say the name of the practice.
Mid-morning Carlos calls on my cell. I don’t answer personal calls during office hours, and he knows he is not supposed to call me here. Then it rings and texts again. This is exasperating. I ignore it. A woman calls wanting to set up an appointment, but while I’m telling her the times we have available she passes the phone to someone else.
“Giovanna, it’s almost impossible to get you.”
“Carlos. You know not to call me here.”
“This is kind of an emergency. You got to join us. We had a new record sales, and Bill wants to take the top sales and marketing staff out to the most expensive restaurant you can imagine and I want you to be there.”
“Such short notice. I’m not ready.”
“You’ll be fine. Just pull a Tatiana and you’ll be awesome. Call me when you get a break.”
Now I’m angry. To pull a Tatiana? He loves Tatiana, but I cannot do half Tatiana. It’s the whole package or nothing. That is the clothes, the accent, the flirtiness. Tatiana is from Brazil. But I’m not Tatiana today. Today I’m that plain girl from New Jersey, trying to answer the phone and freaking out because I’m running out of my medication and I have not set up an appointment with my psychiatrist yet.
We talk during my break. He is really happy and rambles on a million miles an hour about what we can get if he gets the bonus he thinks he is going to get. Put a down payment on a house, so we won’t have to rent anymore. And maybe we could be more. He wants me to get that babysitter girl, give her money for pizza and everything.
After I bring the kids from daycare and call the sitter, I look in the closet for what to wear. I’m getting really depressed because I see Inga’s clothes, I see Tatiana’s clothes, but I don’t see anything I want to wear. I undress and notice that one of my boobs is beginning to sag. Two children, breastfeeding can do a number on you. I grab them. Maybe he could invest in a boob job, besides, he’s the one who will get to enjoy them. I’m not in a good mood. Maybe I’d just piss Carlos off and become Harper. She’s my butch persona who wears ripped blue jeans, worn-out black leather jackets, black Converses, boxer underwear, and T-shirts with no bra. Ha, that would do it. But Harper is not a party animal. Harper likes to write poetry, chain smoke, cuss like a sailor and when I get in the mood I give her a Bronx accent. But not tonight. Nobody is home tonight but little me with a lot of anxiety, running out of my antidepressants. In the bathroom, I take another Adderall. Who am I kidding, I’m just shooting amphetamines. I’m a nervous wreck and I just want to kill Carlos.
Carlos brings me red roses. Candy apple red is Tatiana’s color. I want to love them. I want to tell him how much I appreciate them, but I’m in a mental fog, angry, and feeling depressed.
At the restaurant, Carlos’ boss, Bill, comes to greet us. Bill the CEO, Bill the master salesman. Bill is good at manipulating people so they do all the dirty work for him and he always comes across as the good guy. The stories that Carlos has told me would make a great novel.
“Gina, you look as always, just gorgeous.”
There goes the fucking Gina name. I want to tell him it’s Giovanna, not Gina. But I hold my breath. I flash a smile. I don’t want Carlos to look bad among his peers.
I’m used to restaurants like this since I was a kid when my dad, the head of surgery, would take us out to show off his beautiful wife and family. There’s a private room in the back. Only the top people, the creme de la creme are invited to this quick get-together. There’re none of Carlos’ staff there, but there’s Sheila. I wonder who she is sleeping with now. She’s wearing a miniskirt so short, not even Inga would wear it.
“Giovanna, Giovanna,” she calls out in that girly, annoying voice. “It’s so good to see you. How are the kids?”
I tell her that they are doing great while studying Carlos across the room talking to some of the other top people in the company. I also notice a guy I have seen in photographs in the office. That must be the VP of Sales for the West Coast, who wanted to take over the whole company a few months back. One of the waitresses comes to them and the guy shamelessly flirts with the poor girl. Carlos looks around the room, locks eyes with me and winks.
“I can’t believe the transformation you’ve made on Carlos,” Sheila says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“He used to be such a playboy. A different woman every month – the pilates instructor who looked like Michelle Pfeiffer, the marathoner, the triathlete – and then poof. Overnight, he shows up to company gatherings with kids and the most exquisite, exotic woman I have ever met, you.”
“Oh, gee, please.”
This is why I hate Sheila. She really knows how to blow smoke up your ass.
“So he never asked you out?”
She slightly blushes, takes a sip of her wine, and looks at me. She winks several times and says “No.” Takes a long pause, studying the room. “We’re in such critical positions within the company, we have to butt heads all the time. If we ever went out, we’d kill each other. Speak of the devil.”
Carlos puts his hand around my waist, sliding down and tapping my ass.
“What do you think this really is? Are the numbers that good, or is this more a show of power to tell the West Coast who’s in control?” Carlos says.
“Both,” Sheila says. She touches my hand, winks, and moves away.
At home, in bed, I can tell that Carlos wants to do something. I’m not in the mood. We spoon, and I have to feel his boner behind me. I cannot scrape the image of Sheila from my head. I can’t understand why she blushed while coming up with the most exquisite lie she could muster. And Carlos comes to the rescue, salvaging whatever exchange of information between the two of us. Luca cheated on me. I know because I could smell the women’s perfume in his clothes. I know it because he would change his attitude at home, play with the kids, be pleasant. But when he didn’t have business trips, he became restless around the house. That’s when he found me desirable. It was never about pleasing me, but pleasing him. The times that I wanted to be pleased, that I even brought out half of Inga, he beat me senselessly and called me a whore.
Carlos’ boner is annoying and it will keep me up all night thinking. Thinking about the past. Thinking about the incident. Thinking about every horrible decision I’ve made in my life.
I grab his shaft, and I can feel his heartbeat making it even harder and harder. He runs a finger along my panties and pulls them down. He places a hand around my neck and begins to choke me. He touches the place where the scar is from the knife. I jerk slightly. He gently moves the hand in a different angle. He knows I love to be choked, but don’t touch the scar, ever.
I whisper, “Slow.”
#
Today I’m Harper. Harper is a bitch. Butch. Unapologetic. Nasty. I love her, but I can’t be her for long or I get way too angry. Angry at men, angry at the world, angry at myself. Harper wears boxers, which is a problem because Carlos wears boxers and every now and then he has pulled one of Harper’s boxers thinking they are his, and while trying to get one leg in, he has fallen to the ground.
Carlos is out on a bike ride. I tried to bike with him before. It didn’t work. He is fast and all that, but I felt all I was doing was slowing him down.
Harper loves projects and today we are going to paint one of the kid’s rooms red. Harper has an accent too, but from the Bronx and I love playing with it when I’m at Home Depot asking the guys to mix the paint and what brushes they recommend. Harper gets a lot of looks, but the attracted ones are primarily other women.
Carlos gets home from his ride and I can see him studying me. He likes to write stories so he then asks me who am I right now. I tell him it’s just good ole me. But he says no, that this is something else. Does it have a name?
“Harper,” I say.
He comes over and smells me. His eyes move around like a bird of prey. He sees my nipples through the sweaty t-shirt. He notices the ripped knee of the blue jeans and the paint marks all over.
“Never a dull moment,” he says.
Luca could never comprehend this side of me, he wanted me to keep the house clean, the children fed, and fix whatever was around the house while he went from town to town selling shoe repair equipment. Women should always be dolls, serve their men, or face the consequences.
“Harper,” Carlos calls. “I’m going to cook some steaks. Are you game? Does Harper like to grill?”
“Maybe. Naw. That’s your thing. But Harper likes it rough.”
#
Today it’s me. Not in a good way me, but scared shitless me. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist so at work I’m in a fog, making mistakes, not able to process names and information right, and hyperventilating. I keep looking at my watch for the time that I have to leave and account for traffic, parking and all that.
I need a new prescription and I have questions. Is Jean-Michel on the spectrum? Does he have what I have? Are my fantasies and make-believe characters okay, or is that some sort of sick thing? Am I schizophrenic? Why, why, why do I keep dreaming of the incident? And plastered in my head are Megan’s eyes wide open while I’m on the floor, suffocating, trying to breathe but there’s another hole, not my mouth or nose, but in my neck. As I inhale, liquid comes in. It fills my lungs, I choke, but I can’t move. I see a light bulb above me. I hear Megan sob. She touches me, Mamy, Mamy. But I can’t move, I can’t speak.
I get to my psychiatrist and all I can produce is a nice version of me. All fucking smiles. I just do not want to revisit those thoughts. Not for her. Not for anybody. Fuck the world. Fuck everything.
I go through yes, yes, yes, no, no, no. And I shut down. I get my meds. But I know I’m doing this wrong. That is the one person on planet Earth I need to connect to and I don’t. I’m a chicken. She feels like my dad, the all-knowing surgeon. God will speak to you. The thing I like about Carlos is that his dad is a doctor too, and he has lived through that God is in the room feeling. Fuck, I got my meds, maybe some form of normal will come back.
#
I’m Tatiana, an Amazon, a Victoria’s Secret model. I don’t give a shit what you think about me. When I dress, I dress for me. Fuck men, fuck you. Literally and figuratively. They’re so simple. Freud talked about women having penis envy, that because we don’t have one, we are incomplete. The fool. When you have what I have, my muffin, I can have as many dicks as I desire. And make them do what I want.
Candy apple red is my preferred color.
Giovanna got her stupid meds. Which turns her into a zombie, but not yet. She pretends to be alive. Honey, please wipe your drool. You’re an idiot. Should have left Luca when you first sniffed other women in his clothes, but you stayed, you pathetic cunt. Then he started to beat you up. For nothing. For wearing a dress. For smiling at people. For veering your eyes. For saying something of value and everyone around you got it and loved it. It should have been you doing the stabbing.
You found Carlos with his cute South American accent. You thought he was going to be a Latino lover, but he turned out to be more American than poor little Giovanna. You trained him well. He figured out and understands that you are not his cum receptacle. You told him to stop, slow the fuck down, connect, understand what I’m about. He is not there yet, but he tries.
Luca was an animal. Growing up, he and his brothers would go boar hunting, with no guns, no bows and arrows, just knives. He would tell me the stories, the feeling of warm blood in his hands and the adrenaline rush through his body.
Carlos is a gentleman, sometimes too gentle. Giovanna is clueless. So I tell him what to do, what to pull, how hard to spank, what to whisper in my ears. I claw his back and tell him to go deeper. Giovanna doesn’t really like me. She is too pink for me.
“I want black,” I tell Giorgio.
“Why, why would you like to do that? Women pay hundreds of dollars to get hair like yours. It’s perfect.”
“I feel fake.”
Giorgio stops talking. He looks at me and then away indignant. Then he points his finger at my face, then touches his lip and smiles.
“Who are you today?”
“I want black, like the original Hedy Lamar, Elisabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Wait, brilliant. I get it. Talk to me, what is your accent today? You are going to love what I will do.”
Giorgio calls one of his assistants and tells her that the music has to change. We all need to be in a different mood. Coltrane, Getz, Gilberto, Carlie Parker, Tony Bennett.
“You got any Ella Fitzgerald?” I ask.
“Uhhh. I don’t know, but she is good when we change the whole salon’s mood. You’re going to love it.”
#
The kids are sick as a dog. It started with Megan, so I had to call work and tell them that I needed to be home. Then Jean-Michel gets sick. Carlos comes home from work to check on everyone. I get sick. I can’t take the kids to daycare, so Carlos does. He comes home at lunchtime and tells me the gossip from work and feeds me ice cream. Finally, I feel better, but Carlos gets sick. He’s like a baby. He wants chicken soup. He has to be smothered as all South Americans do in Vicks VapoRub. He calls it vibaporu.
“Give me more vibaporu!”
So I get the gunky, oily cream in my hands and smear it all over his chest. Now and then he coughs. I turn him around and do the same. Then I see his ass. Men love a woman’s ass to just put oil on it and rub it. I do that for him. Now and then he groans but doesn’t move otherwise.
He finally gets better and we go to a restaurant and sit outside.
My voice is Brazilian. He smiles. He likes Tatiana. He asks me where I’m from. We play-act. Two men smoking cigars sit next to us. I put on the whole accent. It feels good. I’m wearing a candy apple red strapless dress. My lips are red, my hair is black. I have stiletto shoes and silk stockings with garters. Yes, I’m wearing panties. Inga is the one that likes to go commando. But the garters go under the panties, not above. So if I have to go to the bathroom to pee, I can pull my panties down without any problem.
I flirt with Carlos. He loves it. Then one of the men at the next table asks where I’m from. I want to ignore him, but I can’t resist and tell him I’m from Brazil.
Twenty-five minutes later, the conversation is animated, but I can see that Carlos is pissed. He gives me looks. He then asks for the check. Why? We are having such a good time. I don’t tell him, but I give him a look. The two men buy a round of single malt for all of us. Carlos smiles and accepts. I’m drunk so my accent is slipping. Pieces of Inga and Harper show up, Giovanna begins to show.
The check arrives. Carlos signs it and asks me if I’m ready to go.
“No,” I tell him.
“Giovanna, we need to go,” he says.
“I want to stay,” I say.
The two guys smoking their cigars give Carlos a look, like saying, this is none of our business.
Carlos pants. “Please Giovanna, it’s getting late, we need to go.”
“I want to stay, you go.”
Carlos’s eyes grow wide. He looks at the guys then at me, then at his watch, then at the parking lot.
Carlos turns red. I can tell he’s about to explode, scream at me, put me in my place, maybe hit me. He takes a deep breath and smiles. He points his finger at me, Tatiana, then at the two guys, winks and walks away.
Just as I expected. Carlos has no balls, he’s not man enough. I see him walk away beside the tables of the other restaurants until he makes a turn and disappears.
#
I’m Giovanna with a hangover today, making breakfast for the kids. Bacon, eggs, pancakes. Carlos is still in bed. I guess, he has a hangover as well.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask.
“Pool?” Megan asks.
“We want to go to the pool,” Jean-Michel giggles.
While the kids are playing with the Wii, Carlos wakes up and comes to the kitchen. I lean forward to kiss him and he rejects me. He has never done that before.
My eyes get wide. His eyes get wide. He produces a fake smile and moves to where the coffee is. He opens the sliding glass door and goes outside to the patio. I follow him, but he closes the sliding door before I get a chance to go out. I open it and go outside. He sits on one of the patio chairs and stares away from me.
I sit next to him and rub his leg. He ignores me, but he does not pull his leg away.
Finally, he looks at me. “Who are you today?”
“I am…” and I stop. Do I have that answer? Is this Giovanna talking? Who am I today? Guilt, resentment, anger, apathy, jealousy, desire, lasciviousness, nothingness? At least there’s no fear.
I don’t know.
He finally makes eye contact. His eyes pour all over me, noticing everything. He hones on my neck, the scar. He reaches. I do not pull away. He is about to touch it but stops. He produces a faint smile, I do not know if it means pity, happiness, or something else. He moves his finger and touches my lip. I kiss his finger.
“I love you,” I say.
He looks away, then back at me.
“I love you too.”