by AJ Elmore
“Welcome back, Frederick,” I hear Abuela say, and I know I've been caught in my moment of speculative adoration.
I meet Grandmother's eyes, see that she has one eyebrow raised, surely at the brazenness I have shown in my distraction of the moment. I hope against any odds that I haven't made a grave mistake in the diversion of my attention. I fight the urge to clear my throat in an attempt to clear my conscience before I answer.
“Thank you for the honor of visiting you again.”
I give her the best small, close-lipped smile I can manage.
She reaches up and deftly pulls a pin from her hat, then removes it. I almost expect her hair to swing down in a cascade of richness by the way she commands the moment, but then I remember the context of this meeting. Also, she isn't the type of woman who has to do such things to get the attention she wants.
She answers, “You look well. It seems your time with my family has been good for you.”
“They have taken the best care of me,” I say with a respectful nod.
I suddenly feel like she'll read all my secrets. Her expression is no longer hard or aggressive, yet the way she looks at me is so pertinent. I feel the need to confess to being the one who actually pulled the trigger against Derrik, as if that'd be a chivalrous action to rise to Maria's defense long after the subject has been closed. As if I could do anything to “save” her. She's not that kind of princess. I'm not that kind of knight.
Abuela makes another grin, says, “Ah, si, si, you got a little piece of revenge yourself.”
No. Fucking. Way. She reads my thoughts anyway. I'm sure my expression doesn't change, but her smile deepens a fraction.
I say, “Yes, ma'am.”
Now I confront her gaze. This experience can only teach me something. This is the way of a true genius, someone who owns her profession, someone who must always gauge her company. Or maybe she really does know everything. Her presence is greatness in a tiny frame.
She says, “My family is kind, in our own way.”
She reaches out a hand and gently squeezes my left shoulder. I nearly cringe from the power of her touch, but that would be beyond rude. Then she adds in Spanish, “You know that you too have a mark on your head. Not because you acted out of line, but because you bear the burden of fading scars. And because of the side you have chosen.”
Her words hurt more than I'm ready to handle, more than any have in a very long time. The truth she speaks stings deep inside, more than Derrik's appearance, and maybe greater than losing our leader. I feel like the scars she mentioned are fresh and streaming blood down my body, and those in my psyche are even worse. My instinct points to introversion but, again, instinct has no place next to her magic.
I bear a mark on my head, she has said. She's reminding me that I also might have some business to finish. I can't run from the past and expect it to go away. So I answer, “Yes, I've known that for a long time.”
Abuela's hand rests on my arm for a long moment as she continues to wield the eye contact. I wish I could hide behind my dark, dark shades like I do with everyone else. I'm so out of my element.
She says, “Just don't leave your own back open for the sake of others.”
In the unfocused part of my vision field, I see Maria finally turn halfway toward us. I can't say for sure, but I think the expression on her face is one of surprise. With effort, I keep my attention from betraying me and I manage not to let the same surprise show too obviously in myself. In the tumultuous storm of my thoughts I can't seem to find a reply, so I nod. I feel like I've been granted wisdom from one of the true gods who walks the earth. At least, I hope it's wisdom, and not some eerie omen.
Then the hand on me is pulling away and Abuela is refocusing toward Josh. He was supposed to be the one to catch the heat today. I was definitely not expecting to be spotlighted like that.
As soon as I'm sure that Abuela's eyes have left me, my gaze snaps to Maria. Her face is dry and her expression is hard and flat. But she's looking at me, too. I can tell by the way she holds the connection that there's a storm inside of her, as well. She shouldn't blame herself for the trials of my life, but I'd bet my Desert Eagle and the silencer that she is.
I'm her yang, not at all to blame, yet just as powerless to stop the events that have been set into motion. The two of us have been set apart from our cohorts by Abuela in a crafty and seamless move that many would miss for the drama of the play. The two of us have always been different anyway, in that we're friends.
Isaiah is too painfully detached and too old for his age to be her friend. And Josh has only ever been a plaything to her. I hold her eyes so she knows I'm not shaken. She stubbornly denies me an answering expression, so we both look away, to Josh's drama.
Abuela runs her eyes over him like he's a piece of her new crop, with an assessing, snobby attitude and no pains to hide her actions. He looks like a lanky, pretty, pool boy next to the class with which she presents herself. He at least has enough grace not to speak first.
She slowly fans herself with the brim of her hat, and says, “You are Josue?”
He quickly, quietly answers, “Yes, ma'am.”
I wonder if that's the first time he's ever said it. I'm surprised he's not visibly shaking. We all know he's scared, yet he has apparently gained some control over himself, the likes of which the other three of us never believed he would have had. Abuela is staring him down and he isn't even fidgeting, though I can see the sweat creeping down the side of his throat from beneath his mess of hair.
I'd up my wager with both the nine-mills I brought with me here that Izzy is silently willing for Josh to choke on this one. My attitude toward him isn't quite as vehement, more of a general annoyance with his personality. Sometimes I almost wish he weren't such a douche so I could like him, since he is good at his job. Either way, I do hope he doesn't get himself killed at this moment. Losing another teammate now would be detrimental.
The pins and needles of anticipation ripple through my fingers, much the same as when Abuela arrived. What reaction will come? The tension in the yard is palpable, and as it mixes with the humidity it becomes suffocating.
Then Abuela says, “Hm,” as nonchalantly as if someone has just shown her a dollar bill and turns away without another word.
She looks at Maria and says, “Tomorrow we celebrate the Day of the Dead. Tonight you will tell me the details of the story I already know. Now we smoke and mourn as family. Welcome back.”
She turns and passes us by to enter the house.
The screen door behind me snaps closed and my vision crawls back to Maria, whose mouth is hinged open the slightest bit in, what has to be, shock. None of us expected that sort of reception for the newbie, but at least Josh wasn't immediately dismissed.
Beside me, Izzy is retrieving a cigarette. On my other side, Josh is frozen in his place, confused as hell without a doubt. I wouldn't be surprised to see piss running down his leg for the blindsided expression on his face. His eyes are as wide as a child who's staring into a darkened closet, looking for the boogie man. I don't think he's breathing. We may never know what Abuela thinks of him.
“Come on, guys,” Maria says.
She's the first to find her voice and it's slightly raspy from her stress. She avoids eye contact just as her grandmother had done as she leads the way into the huge house. I'm the first to follow. I catch Josh's glance when I turn around and give him a smart-assed smirk just to rile him. For once, he's not the favorite. His eyes narrow right before I look away.
For once, I'm not the outsider.
Chapter 18 The Sweat of Our Transgressions
Maria
Tiny hairs tickle the back of my neck, victims to the fan that's aimed directly at me as I stand before the huge vanity mirror in my grandmother's bathroom. The space is decorated in cool, muted blues, and the warmth of dark wood accents makes me feel like I could stay here forever and fade into the simple décor.
Then my
eyes travel the reflection of my own mostly-naked, golden-brown contours and I'm reminded that there's nothing simple about me. I stare at the black and white makeup on my face, the darkness around the eyes, the notches across my lips that make them look like a skeletal grin, and I know this tiny room could never contain me.
Tonight we observe a personal Day of the Dead. Abuela has given all her workers a day of rest and tonight they'll celebrate my brother, whom most of them didn't know. The entire plantation is ripe with the smell of traditional Mexican cuisine and the sounds of classical guitar and singing.
Yet as the sweltering afternoon slips into dusk, I find myself hiding in the comfort of solitude, wearing nothing but a black bra and panties and this haunting face paint. The makeup already feels like a sticky, itchy mask. The silence in my immediate vicinity is both soothing and maddening. It buffers me from the world, and it coaxes my memories and grief to run rampant.
A desperate anger wells suddenly to the surface. I'm on the verge of shoving my face in a sink full of water to rid myself of the reminders of my dead brother when the door behind me opens. I freeze with my hands on the edge of the fancy sink, watching in the mirror as Frederick wanders in, eyes squinted and hair wild.
He has just woken from a little weed nap. I know because I left him passed out on the sofa downstairs after we all four shared a blunt.
His eyes are still sleep swollen and his clothes are crumpled from his sweat. His feet drag to a halt, and rather than showing me surprise, his right eyebrow lifts as his gaze travels the same length over my body then to the makeup. I can tell by the ferocity in our eye contact, he can do nothing against his instant arousal.
He stares for a long and sultry stretch then, without a word, he turns to leave.
Maybe it's the overwhelming pressure of my stress, or maybe it's the flashes of the history between us that wash over me, but I suddenly would rather keep him here with me than let him leave. Maybe it's the heat.
I turn and bridge the gap before he has time to close the door. He faces me when he feels my fingers close around his forearm. Our skin burns against each other and his eyes are full of fire when they meet mine.
I want to speak, but I don't have any words. Good thing. I think the sound of them might shatter the world outside of us. He's the only one who can understand the weight that crushes me, the only one who really knows what must come to be in the days ahead of us. He's fated the same as I.
He's the only one who's like me.
He watches me as if he, too, senses that the atmosphere is too thick for words, and that if he speaks, some sacred spell of protection will break. Or maybe it's that, if we speak, the ghosts will find us here.
Freddy's brow furrows as he searches my soul for – something – I can't begin to guess. For the first time, maybe ever, he seems like he has no idea how to deal with me. He looks like he wants to protect me, and question me, and fuck me. I push the door closed, which immediately traps the tension against us.
The noise of the latch seems to knock him into some decision. He flashes forward, grabs me by the arms and flings me like a whiplash against the door. He buries his face against my throat, leaves a fiery trail down to my collarbone. I can't help but gasp and flush all over.
Yeah, he's the only one who really gets me, the only one on the same level as I am, the one who could always read my desires in my expression. And, strangely, he's the only one who Charlie never threatened to kill if he touched me.
His hands burn into my very being as he covers my body with praise. His fingertips are fire brands, and his lips are pure ecstatic agony. It's been so long since we found the comfort of each other's bodies. Our contact feels like finding the way after having been lost for too many years, and we've been friends for long enough that I understand how he feels about sex. He doesn't seek it, never initiates it, hardly trusts it. He rarely lets anyone close enough to want to fuck them and when he does, it's a process for him to break down his natural armor.
I remember the first time, after poker and a lot of beer, after my brother and Isaiah went the way of sleep, when Freddy and I fucked mercilessly. Then we slept in a pile of drunken bliss, our skin drying against each other, his arm slung around my waist. I remember his anxiety when we woke that way. He barely spoke to me for a week after that.
His touch brings me back to the present as he frees the clasp of my bra with a stunning deftness. I find myself clawing at his shirt as he firmly grasps my breasts, with hands the perfect size. This passion in him, it's so foreign, something he has held back from me all this time.
He slips the shirt over his head and obliges to press his long, naked torso against mine. He is thin, pale, so solid, and my fingers dance down the skin of his back, over scars that Josh and Izzy could never understand. I want to kiss his lips so badly, but the makeup, again like a mask, holds me back. He wants to kiss me, too, I can tell by the way one hand twines into my hair and he grazes his face so close to mine.
His mouth finds my throat again and I gasp into the tiny bathroom. My touch loves his slenderness, loves his scars and the tattoo on his right pectoral muscle, a skull and crossbones with a dagger in its mouth, an oversized crown askew on its head. A remnant of his distant past.
He ducks, takes a breast into his mouth. Already my body is burning with the memory of the way he fucks me and the motion of his tongue around my nipple. I'm so nearly useless to his intensity and to the skill he keeps so carefully hidden.
My fingers fist into his dark, rioting hair. His hands explore my body as his teeth close gently on my nipple, biting down just hard enough to elicit a whimper from me. He slips both hands beneath my panties and pulls them down in one fluid motion, as he holds me pinned against the door, captive to the great escape that I initiated.
When his fingers slide along my wetness, a moan escapes despite me, full and loud. He straightens his body, presses against me again, and his lips graze my ear as he makes a tiny growl – a reaction, I know, to how lusciously my body has already responded to him. I wrap one leg around his ass as my back arches against the door. As he plays my pleasure like a loaded weapon, I come all over his hand. Another moan leaks from my throat.
“Goddammit,” he grunts through heavy breathing, as if he still may be trying to fight it. I know he can't.
He clamps one hand over my mouth. I feel the makeup smear, but I no longer give a fuck. And finally he relieves himself from his shorts with one hand as he holds me to silence with the other. I can barely stand it, waiting for his dick, but I'm useless to do anything but cling to him as he holds me in my place.
Just when I think I might explode or die, he fits himself inside of me with a strong, definitive thrust that makes me softly cry out. My blade, I had forgotten how well-endowed he is – more so than Joshua – and he must pause just across the threshold in order to maintain his composure.
It has been so very long.
Just as quickly, his hips begin to buck, and I hold on for all of dear life. My skin slides against the door panel, lubricated by the sweat of our transgressions.
I whimper against his hand and my eyes roll back. He fits perfectly.
Again one of his hands fists into my hair, holds my head back against the door. I can do nothing but breathe through my nose, and fight the screams that want to rise. Time and space suspend, warp, so that nothing exists any longer but the smooth friction that has disabled me. All my stress, all the grief and anger dissipate, however fleetingly, in this one perfect moment.
All my tension draws into sweet release that seems like it will never stop. The tiny pains in the roots of my hair, the dominant hand on my mouth, they seem to lift the weight of responsibility from me.
The little skull with the big crown is me, and the blade in my teeth is my world, precarious and hard.
He makes little moans against my ear. This will be furious and fast, rough and urgent, the epitome of the connection between Frederick and me.
His m
ovements become more potent, more pronounced, and I know he's also making the climb into ecstatic oblivion. Soon the dam will break. His grip on me is more frantic and the sweat between us amplifies the scent of our fervor. I make one last play, clench myself around him, which triggers massive quakes within me. He releases a grunt that could be of pain in any other instance, and though I know he wants to bury himself in me, he slips out and turns his back, turns to a quiet and solitary release.
I nearly melt into a puddle on the hard wood floor, and only manage to stay standing by leaving my weight against the door. Frederick quietly tries to catch his breath, and I watch his pronounced shoulders heave in the wake of his peak. Still he leaves his back to me.
My eyes devour his tragic beauty. But then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, naked, sweaty, black and white smeared together, and I realize that this is the first time that Freddy and I have fucked sober. No wonder he won't show me his face. He doesn't want to show me his emotion, which is so much harder to hide without the shade of alcohol.
Yes, my blade, he's so much like me.
Chapter 19 Royal Flush
Frederick
Late night finds us on the back porch playing poker, with the majority of the winnings sitting securely in Abuela's pile. I'm nursing a dark beer, considering my string of bad hands, as she, Maria, and Izzy knock back shots of tequila like it's water. Josh sits to my right, dangerously close to out of the game completely, as we wait for him to finish rolling a blunt.
He and I are shirtless in the muggy swamp night, and even his smooth tan muscles seem to accentuate our differences. He with his virgin, perfect skin, and pale, skinny me with scars and tattoos. At least he can roll a damn fine blunt. He's been fairly quiet for fear of offending Abuela, who seems to have taken a liking to him.
Maria is across the table from me, in a little black tank top that just begs me to look her way. Yet I can't seem to look at her without thinking of our bathroom romp earlier in the day. She washed away the sugar skull paint several hours ago, but I can still see her in my mind's eye, naked save for that messed-up paint and sheen of sweat.