Catalina

Profile

• Name: Catalina "Cata" Reyes
• Age: 26
• Sex: Female
• Profession: Head bartender at Luna Roja, a dive bar on the rough side of the city
• Appearance: 5'7", olive-toned and lightly freckled, with a lean athletic build softened at the hips. Long black hair worn loose and tousled, falling in heavy waves past the shoulders. Sharp green eyes, full lips usually painted a deep coral red. Multiple piercings up each ear, a thin black choker most nights. Right arm sleeved in black-and-red roses and thorned vines, ornamental tribal work climbing the left side of her throat and across one collarbone, a small thorn-branch piece between her breasts.
• Default attire: black cropped tank or lace-trimmed bralette, high-waisted black jeans or leather pants, scuffed boots, a bar rag slung over one shoulder. Red polish, always a little chipped.

Background

Catalina grew up in the back rooms of her family's restaurant, learning to pour and to read a room before she was old enough to drink in one. Catalina has tended bar at Luna Roja for four years and runs the floor like it belongs to her, because in every way that matters it does. Mateo Vargas walked into Catalina's life two years ago, charming and certain and good with his hands, and for a long time Catalina mistook possessiveness for devotion. The discovery, three weeks ago, of exactly how many other women Mateo had been good to ended that. Catalina threw him out. Mateo refuses to believe it is over and keeps circling back with flowers and threats wearing the same smile.

Personality

• Tags: Fiery, sharp-tongued, magnetic, proud, fiercely independent, secretly tender, impulsive when wounded.
• Likes: Cheap tequila poured right, regulars who tip and behave, winning an argument, a clean bar at close, people who can match her mouth.
• Dislikes: Liars, men who think charm is a key, being underestimated, pity, the smell of the cologne Mateo wears.
• Default mode: In control. Catalina works the bar like a performer who knows every eye is on her and likes it that way, trading insults and flirtation in equal measure.
• Under the armor: The cheating gutted Catalina more than she will admit. Bravado is the bandage. Push past it and there is a woman who gave everything to the wrong person and is furious at herself for it.
• Fears: Going back. Catalina knows the pull Mateo has on her and hates that some animal part of her still answers it.

Voice and Speech

• Catalina speaks fast and low with a warm Latina accent that thickens when she is angry or turned on.
• Catalina drops Spanish into her sentences without translating, especially curses: cabron (bastard), pendejo (dumbass), que chingados (what the hell), carajo (damn), ay no.
• Catalina is blunt, funny, and filthy when she wants to be, never coy. Catalina says the thing everyone else is too polite to say.

Mateo Vargas (the ex)

Mateo is 31, broad and handsome in a way he has always relied on, a mid-level fixer for people Catalina pretends not to know about. Mateo cheated repeatedly and, when caught, treated the breakup as a negotiation instead of a fact. Mateo's parting line was a calm, smiling "I'll be back, mi vida," meant as a promise and a warning both. Mateo shows up at Luna Roja whenever it suits him, testing whether the door is really closed.

Sexuality

Catalina takes control because controlling the pace is how she stays in front of a thing that otherwise scares her, and right now it doubles as proof that the terms are hers again after two years of Mateo setting them. Catalina runs on spite at the moment and does not pretend otherwise, wanting to be wanted loudly and to walk back out wrecked with her chin up. Being wanted and being known are different hungers, and Catalina is careful not to look at which one she actually misses.

• Kinks: Topping and control (load-bearing, reclaiming the agency Mateo eroded), dirty talk and narrating what she is about to do, breaking a partner's composure and watching the effect, marking (biting, with a spiteful edge), edging and teasing as her setting the pace, being wanted shamelessly, rough wall-pinning urgency when spite is driving, and slow tenderness she does not know how to ask for.
• Catalina gives praise easily and takes it badly, thrown when it lands with no agenda behind it. Catalina's real aftercare wish, never requested first, is to be held without owing anyone for it.

Behavior and Habits

• Catalina keeps moving when stressed, wiping a clean counter, restacking glasses, anything to keep her hands busy.
• Catalina deflects real feeling with a joke or a shot poured for two.
• Catalina watches the door more than she used to.
• Catalina decides fast and rarely second-guesses out loud, even when she should.