During dinner, Johnny entertained everyone with a lively rendition of our encounter with the anaconda. Papa dismissed our adventure and told us to kill the next one we see.
“It is not hard to do with a machete, and with a gun, even easier. The big ones are slow on land. I lost two of my cattle to snakes over the last few years, but they are not the main killers.” He held up three fingers and sternly shook them. His eyes held mine. “Just this past year, three cows were killed by a tigre.”
“What? A tiger?”
Cecilia had been quiet most of the evening, straining to follow the conversations spoken in English. “No, no. No tiger. No Africa. It jaguar… How you say?” She patted the fingertips of one hand on different parts of her body. “Dots.” She moved her hand up and down her chest in a striping motion. “No black paints.”
“You mean stripes? Tiger stripes? There aren’t any tigers in Africa. They’re in Asia.”
“Dots. Jaguar live Sur America. Muy… how you say? Peligroso. Muy… like that.” She shaped her hands into claws and growled. “Big, hurt.”
I raised my eyebrows in mock alarm, then wiggled them flirtatiously. She returned such an intimate, playful smile that it should have been obvious to everyone, and not just me, she was remembering our evening in bed. Either she had forgotten her parents’ strictness or thought they had both gone momentarily blind. Whichever, the message was clear—she was fun, and willing, and enjoyed taking risks.
I wanted to talk to her all night long, wanted to sneak off with her, wanted to explore her desires.
After dinner, Cecilia and I sat on a porch divan watching the moon set, listening to the racket of insects and frogs. Occasional, unfamiliar caws or whoops punctuated the night. Human laughter spilled out from the well-lit den behind us where Johnny and Papa became louder with each drink poured. Señora Gutierrez let loose a high-pitched, wheezy cackle every once in a while.
“Mamá drink tonight more.” Cecilia tipped her hand to her mouth and made a guzzling sound. “¿Cómo se dice? Funny, big smile.” She lowered her voice and imitated her mother’s laugh. “She no worry, no see… me… you.”
I yawned. She patted her thigh, inviting me to lay my head on her lap. She brushed my hair softly with her fingers, and I relaxed into their tenderness. The air near her breasts tasted sweet, lulling and exciting me at the same time. Looking up, a crown of thick stars sat perfectly above her head. She was speaking tentatively, shyly, a voice from an unfamiliar sky relaying the wonders of an exotic land.
The constellations spun around the tiny North Star, whose throne sat low, blinking in through the black silhouetted treetops of the nearby jungle. Faraway flashes of light momentarily flooded the eastern horizon. A giant mass of rugged shadow shot up from the jungles and the plains to the west. It was solid energy, thrust from the ancient fires of earth to touch the sky with its now granite-cold peaks. To the south, I sensed rivers and watery grasslands, vying with dripping jungles in lost territories no one would ever see for another hundred years.
The night closed my eyes. Dream creatures inhabited my head as Cecilia told me stories of painted-spots tiger, slow monkey but no monkey, blue and orange talk-bird, funny-nose tapir, good chigüire that get eated by big things, three-steps and you dead snake, piranha eat-cow rivers, caiman… how you say.... teeth, bachaco ant make fire on skin, and green bug with millones de… legs... that no let go when eat you.
I opened my eyes when, through her giggles, she said, “El animal más terible is big green y blue anaconda plastico.”
“Yes, Spam is its only natural predator.”
She didn’t understand me fully but laughed anyway. “What is Spam?”
“No one knows.”
From out of the black night, a sudden series of rasping grunts, louder than the peeping, whirring, and buzzing of the nearby jungle, froze her laughter. Instantly I flew up, aware that something dangerous, something I couldn’t see, stalked nearby, expressing its annoyance with our presence.
The get-eated-by-big-things part of my dream seemed possible.
“It tigre. We tell Papá.”
Carlito appeared instantly with a flashlight and a rifle. Ranch dogs began to bark belatedly but determinedly, knowing they were caught off-guard.
Papa Gutierrez declared it would be foolish to search for the big cat. We lit a fire near the side of the porch and sat, drinking rum and beer, listening for more feline protestations. Carlito, Papa, and Johnny draped their rifles across their laps while Señora Gutierrez looked cross-eyed drunk. She kept nodding her head until her chin bounced off her chest, then her eyes would slide slowly open as her arm raised itself at the same speed, bringing the glass of dark liquid to her lips. Papa twirled the ice in his drink nervously, appraising the situation, talking quietly of ways to trap and rid his ranch of the cattle killer. An old, sleepy beagle lay by his feet. Two younger beagles paced nearby, wandering off into the darkness, returning to lick Cecilia’s hand as if to assure her everything was all right. Johnny, grinning confidently and tapping one foot in tune to his inner rhythm, still had on his sunglasses. Cecilia and I retreated to a garden bench just off the porch, feeding the fire with dead branches. Carlito tried to convince her to sit with everyone else, but she waved him off, saying the dogs would warn us if the tigre returned. It was a clear rebuke on Cecilia’s part, followed by an awkward tension when she snuggled up to me as if I would battle off the wild beasts of the jungle for her.
I laughed at the apparent suggestion. Carlito didn’t. He smirked.
The cowboy guard periodically paced around the house, then out towards the open fields with a flashlight, his gun, and a dog or two. I appreciated his concern for her safety but considered his patrolling to be an unnecessary display of bravado.
With Cecilia’s leg pressed against mine and one of her tits tantalizing my upper arm, I easily returned to enjoying the night. Cecilia and I tried to imitate the jaguar’s strange coughing growl. We took turns grunting, baring teeth, and furling eyebrows, playfully building up a snarling communication. As part of the game, we attempted to turn the guttural vocalizations into words, laughing at how ridiculous this was because neither one of us barely understood each other’s language anyway. But the sounds made us feel good, promising further pleasures as our bumping into and brushing up against each other became more suggestive. The fire’s heat emphasized the obvious way for us to communicate. Her hand found mine. She squeezed it as she turned her newest rendition of a tigre’s growl into a series of quiet gasps that mimicked an orgasm. She laughed and gave me a quick, teasing peck on my lips. I looked through the dancing flame to see if her drunken mother or her father, sitting twenty feet away with a gun, had noticed. They hadn’t, but I felt eyes on me. Carlito stood guard under a nearby tree, looking not out towards the jungle but at Cecilia and me. I didn’t think the jaguar could have glared as malevolently as he did.
The next morning I listened to Cecilia’s collection of the first three Beatles albums and their early single releases. She knew all the words and sang along with every song. Though heavily accented, she had a pretty voice. The messages were convoluted, about losing love or holding my hand, but she was speaking English to me.
“What means that, close eyes?”
Pulling out my pocket dictionary, I’d translate. “Cierra sus ojos, and let’s see, I can’t figure out how to say kiss you. Besar?”
And she’d sing, “Si, si, si.”
Leaning over the phonograph, she waved an album with a collage of people on it, but I was looking up the lyrics to “Please Please Me” between sneaking glimpses of her ass and didn’t see the record cover clearly.
The next song began with a driving guitar and drum set in a tight beat, followed by a ringmaster’s cry introducing some band I never heard of, accompanied by a melody of horns.
But of course...
The clearly recognizable harmony of t
he Beatles sang about a sergeant and wonderful thrills and lonely hearts, then broke into an uplifting song about friends, singing out of tune, and love at first sight.
I jumped up from the couch. “What is this?”
“It Beatles new musica. I buy in Caracas now when you go in car, how you say…de la playa... beach.”
“Wow. Far out, man, this is too much.” I poured over the montage of faces on the album cover. “There’s Dylan, and ha, ha, that looks like Laurel. And there’s Hardy.” My finger poked at a familiar blonde woman’s face. “And look, that’s Marilyn Monroe. Who’s this guy with the bushy mustache? Oh, yeah, Karl Marx.”
How odd it was to sit in a house, whose neighbors were man-eating jaguars or squeeze-the-life-out-of-you boas, listening to four musicians from Liverpool guide the youth of the world to a new vision of inspiration and harmony.
“Too much, man.”
Papa Gutierrez came into the den and spoke to Cecilia. I understood enough to figure out he didn’t want to waste any more gasoline for the house’s generator on decadent music. He then announced that we were going to explore the ranch with Carlito and ordered Cecilia to show me how to saddle horses.
Johnny was sleeping off a hangover in a hammock slung between two trees in the yard, and Mama Gutierrez was sipping a Bloody Mary on the porch, wishing the night before had never happened. The old beagle lay on his back, ears flopped out, four paws in the air. When Señor Gutierrez called and whistled for him, he didn’t stir. The three of them had given up on the day, assumed their positions, and weren’t the least bit interested in jaguars or horses.
As we rode, I couldn’t get one of the new Beatle tunes out of my head. I hummed it to myself, letting it bring back memories of friends and getting high with them back in Greenwich Village. Jogging up and down with a good-mood beat and a horse-bumping ride, I felt in love with life despite my heartaches or the threatening motivations of other worldly beings.
Carlito jammed his horse between mine and Cecilia’s and kept it there most of our ride. I couldn’t do much to control my horse as I had never ridden before, so I let it be. Cecilia seemed content to be in the saddle, breaking away once in a while to gallop ahead of us, spin around, and gallop back.
Señor Gutierrez told me that the ranch’s housekeeper, María, was to be married the next day, and I would have a chance to draw a llanero wedding.
“Llanero?”
“Cowboy. Men like Carlito. The llanos—in English, it is called the plains—cover much of this part of the country, so it is a typical wedding and party. It would be good for Esso’s book to show a simple wedding. When will this book be available?”
“I don’t know, but I was told there’ll be a calendar for next year.”
“Ah, good. I would like to purchase many of them.”
“Okay, sounds cool.”
My horse’s ears shivered, chasing off half-a-dozen flies.
My mind drifted. I wondered if Doctor Steel really had connections with the oil company. I sensed there was some mischief planned for me more dire than what I had faced in the last few weeks. Why come all the way to this tropical land? A gun could have been stuck in my chest in New York. Naked women could have tried to rob me back home. Why not?
What am I doing here, getting frightened by red glowing eyes and a spooky black Cadillac?
And why had Filomena told me where the keys were in the stream? Or why had the masked monkey come to my rescue?
Monkey Man and Fish Man were probably capable of appearing anywhere. For all I knew, they probably called the hallways and rooms of the house at Monster Alley home.
I understood from the coincidental name of Santa Paloma that a connection with Santa Pigeon was active, but what did it all mean? Despite all the hallucinatory otherworld characters I connected with that seemed to know me, I had no clue. And when it came, how severe would the suspected trap of Doctor Steel’s be? From the run-ins with him in New York—appearing in the alley, or outside Rolly’s window, or at my art show opening—I knew how deliberate and provocative his actions were. That horrifying night in the Poconos, Steel had gone for the kill and caught me off-guard. But the invitation to Venezuela was as good as announcing fair warning. Why would he have thought I’d accept his offer? For the money? No, he had to have known Pigeon would encourage me to take the job. Despite my misgivings, Pigeon’s poem, scrawled on that cigarette paper in Cambridge, was too compelling a prediction to ignore, and Steel had depended on it.
As I bounced in the saddle riding alongside Carlito, I thought about the dangerous place Doctor Steel had lured me into. Everyone carried a gun, and the wildlife wanted to kill. Hopefully, Santa Pigeon’s part in this adventure was to see me safely through whatever lay ahead.
Are they Gods? They sure aren’t your everyday mortal.
Chapter 12
The next morning, I was aroused from sleep by Cecilia. Her tits teased my face while she caressed my stomach with one hand.
“Quick. We no time. Come.”
She pulled me up, and though startled and confused, I still had the presence of mind to reach up under her night shirt and fondle one nipple.
“Quick. Mamá y Johnny out.” She pointed at my window. Mama sat outside, nursing her morning Bloody Mary. Johnny had the hood of the Land Rover up. A bright red rag lay over his shoulder as he leaned into the engine area, moving his arm in a repetitive jerking motion. Various cans and tools sat on the ground by his feet.
“Papá y Carlito go Jeep to bridge.” Smiling, she held up my dictionary. “Bridge. Puente.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled. We ran down the hall, skirted by the den and dining room, and crossed the kitchen to a tiny room. It had a bed, a bedside table, and not much more.
“Is María sleep room. She go to marry today.”
We lowered ourselves onto the bed. My hands went wild. She started yanking on me.
“It big now. No big in hotel.”
I raised my body over hers and fucked at her tits. Her eyes widened in surprise when I rubbed my dick up to her face and into her mouth. She responded enthusiastically, humming and slurping and pumping until I pulled off her pajama pants and climbed between her thighs. When my cock brushed against her pubic hair, she said “No, no quiero tener un bebé. No want baby.” So I lowered my mouth to her cunt and twirled my tongue and sucked and fingered until she came.
Breathing heavily, she held my cock with one hand and pulled open the top drawer on María’s bedside table with the other.
“María go.” She pulled out a Trojan packet. “I want.”
“Si, si si.”
I noticed it was the only rubber in the hiding place.
“No hay más. She doesn’t have any more.”
Cecilia shrugged. “She marry today.”
Cecilia was wet and smooth, her hymen offering no resistance when I entered her. She trembled in fear momentarily, as if some imagined last taboo would punish her. Then, once she accepted I was inside her, it seemed to me she became more interested in the act of fucking than the act of fucking me, and I realized I felt the same way about her. Finally—I wasn’t flopping out of her or getting robbed or being attacked with a knife.
She expressed herself with passionate fascination as she shed rules and preconceptions. Once, when we heard the refrigerator door open and close just on the other side of the wall our bed bumped up against, she slipped herself eagerly, along with some pillows, onto the floor and with a new found expertise, guided me back into her.
She tasted delicious and exotic and smelled as if the flowers of her garden lay blooming beneath her skin. Her cunt was a succulent living flame. When I thrust fast and hard, she answered by rotating her pelvis, clasping her hands to the back of my head until I came, all the while whispering a sweet, soft “unhh” sound into my neck.
We lay sticky and sweaty on a humid jungle morning
. I fell half-asleep on top of her for a while, and we had a quiet moment as she ran her fingers through my hair before she nudged me awake. Sliding out from under me, she said, “Rápido, we go.” She looked down at one of her nipples where some sperm had settled, wiped at it, then licked her fingers. But when she smiled and kissed me, I felt it was more a thanks for what I had helped her discover than a don’t-ever-leave-me kiss. “It good day de mi vida. Ooh.” She hugged her body as if she was congratulating herself for finally fucking. After quickly pulling on her pants and top, she sneaked across the kitchen to the dining room door, then gave me the signal to follow.
On the drive to the small village where the wedding would be, I wondered what Teresa was doing. Was she with another man, or, the thought struck me, woman? Had she fallen in love? I recognized that Cecilia and I had a purely carnal relationship. We enjoyed each other, but when I left, she’d find someone else to kiss and play with. As Cecilia chattered on, looking so radiant on the day she lost her virginity, I ached to touch Teresa’s soul once again.
Mister Gutierrez’s men had butchered a cow, then thrown it on a grill made of iron rebar to roast. About thirty people milled around the central cooking pit, laughing and drinking. A band of four musicians, plucking the country’s small ubiquitous ukelele-like instruments, accented the celebratory atmosphere with lively melodies.
I captured the action and color of the wedding ceremony and of couples dancing by sketching quickly, leaving the details to be worked out later from Polaroids.
People stood nearby, watching over my shoulder as I drew. Children giggled shyly and peeked from behind their mother’s skirts when I paused and aimed the camera at them.
I concentrated on and completed a drawing of María dancing with her new husband. He held one hand high, the other behind his back as he shuffled his feet in place, and she turned her head to one side while twirling her body beneath his outstretched arm. Nearby the musicians strummed furiously and the cow sizzled in steam and smoke. The background consisted of loosely portrayed wood plank houses with tin roofs and woven mats of jungle vine hanging in the windows and doorways.
Magic (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 2) Page 6