by D. P. Adamov
Esmeralda looked impassive.
“Are you ready to turn around?”
Manolo nodded, rolling over to reveal how he was as erect as before.
“The scar shows the wound healed,” she remarked, tracing her finger over it. “It seems sad to use the death of one bull to heal what has already healed.”
“That’s the way of things,” Manolo responded. “After that bull falls dead, I go on with my life.”
“And your wife’s life?”
Manolo sighed.
“Maybe. That’s another worry of mine.”
Esmeralda ran her fingers over his chest.
“If it is the spanking thing, maybe again, you should not do it with her and just do the traditional sex. Save yourself and your fetishes for when you come here.”
“It’s not just a fetish,” he entreated. “It’s a punishment. It is how we resolve things.”
“Okay.” Esmeralda frowned. “Go with it then and see where it leads.”
She looked down at his massive erection and grinned.
“Do you want me to do something about that?”
Manolo nodded.
Without another word, Esmeralda was on the stiffened thing with her mouth. If the bullfighter’s wife would not oblige him, she was happy to do so. That was, after all, part of her job.
“Suck it,” Manolo gasped. “Now, eat it.”
The feelings of intense pleasure were magnified and multiplied by the sense of doing something highly immoral. Like De La Torre, he was cheating on his wife. Did this act deserve even worse punishment than he meted out to her in his brazen way of doing things? Was he not the most evil of the two?
“Suck it, damn you. Suck it all the way.”
With his hands, he grabbed her hair and guided her head in the carousel horse motion that was driving him wild. He felt the warmth of her mouth, as well as occasional nips from her teeth and her tongue.
“Suck it. Suck it.”
If only Lucinda would comply as readily. Their marriage would be much more content.
“Suck it.”
In order not to feel as guilty about having stepped out on Lucinda once again, he imagined her, rather than his momentary partner, bobbing up and down on his rod.
“Suck it!”
In and out. In and out. Esmeralda increased her motions, making slurping sounds as she did. How she was able to breathe and keep up this pace was a mystery.
“Eat it good!”
He was ready to come and it was too soon, but that was what he wanted. Being brought to orgasm by Esmeralda’s hungry mouth would demand a specified punishment.
“Ogggggggg!”
It had happened way too early. This time, rather than whitewashing her tonsils, he lifted her head, so he unloaded on her face.
“You made this happen too quick,” he blurted out.
Knowing her signal, Esmeralda rose and disappeared into the bathroom, where once again she duteously brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth. She then returned with a second washcloth and cleaned Manolo’s softening appendance.
“I take it I’m going to get spanked for this?” she questioned, already knowing what was expected of her.
“You better believe it. The only question is what I want to do it with and how.”
Esmeralda shuddered, not knowing for certain how she would be punished. The only thing she knew was it would be hard.
“How do you want me?” she asked softly with her head down.
“Well, you are already naked. You made me shoot off way too early, and that should merit a whipping or paddling rather than just a spanking. You should get it with a brush or a belt. The only thing is, you made me feel so good, I’m thinking to be merciful and just do it with the hand.”
“Whatever you want,” she again whispered, still looking down at her feet like a dejected school girl.
“Let’s go across my lap,” he informed her as she sat up on the bed. “We’ll do it the traditional way.”
Esmeralda nodded and without further instruction placed herself prone across Manolo’s body, her head and torso on the mattress, with her bare butt upturned.
“This is going to be your punishment for making me come too soon,” he announced.
If this spanking was assumed to be lighter because it was delivered with the hand rather than a paddle of some form, Esmeralda was sadly mistaken, as a rapid set of blows had her kicking and screaming from the onset.
“Ow! Please! Hurts! Owwww! It hurts! Owwwww!”
Manolo watched as imprints of his right hand took shape on his target’s uncovered rear end.
“Owwww!”
More blows came, increasing in fury. Esmeralda accepted them willingly, without being held down, though on the last few her legs started to kick.
“Owwwwwwwwwwww!”
“Just be glad you won’t get the paddle,” he spat out. “You need that! Be glad you’re getting the hand instead.”
“Owwwww,” she wailed out. “I am. I am.”
Perhaps the whole routine was getting old. Manolo did not feel the normal arousal he felt with either his Nogales hideaway lover or his own wife when he administered punishment. It was strange to not have the sensations setting his body alight with electrical shocks. But then, he had just spent himself with a massive ejaculation.
“Owwww! Please! Owwww!”
Esmeralda’s butt started to bounce instinctively as the slams became more painful and her flesh started to burn.
“Ow! Ow!”
“This is nothing,” Manolo lectured. “This isn’t even close to what you deserve. You’ve been bad beyond words. You suck my cock and make me come too soon. You cause me to cheat on my wife, because you’ll do things she won’t do. You tempt me, and you tempt other men. You deserve far worse than this.”
“I know,” Esmeralda agreed, as she started to move and squirm against the strikes. “I know. I’ve been bad! I’ve been bad! I’ll be good from now on!”
“So will I find you still working here when I am in Nogales again?”
“Yesssssssssssss…”
“I figured as much. You will never be good, no matter how hard you try. You want to be bad. You will always be bad, and that’s why no matter how hard I spank you, you will never learn. So we’ll try again and again and again.”
“I’m sorry I’m so bad,” she whined with tears now starting to flow. “Please! No! No! Owwwwwwww!”
“I’ve fallen in love with a harlot,” Manolo snapped, as he continued to pound away at Esmeralda’s posterior.
“Tell me you are a harlot and no matter how hard I spank you, you will never learn!”
“I’m a harlot,” she insisted, half speaking and half shrieking. “I will never learn! I’ll always be bad! Owwww! I’ll always be bad! Owwww!”
There was still no stiffness in his manhood. That was indeed odd. In a panic, Manolo increased the speed and precision of his whaps, which caused the punished girl to scream with each one.
“Owwwww! Oww! Owwww!”
It was then things came to an end, as abruptly as they had started.
“Go stand in the corner.”
Obeying the command, Esmeralda got up and, rubbing her scalding ass all the way, headed for the corner of the room. Her sobs were real and her breathing labored.
“Stand there until I tell you to come out.”
“Well done, but I never thought this was what you were into.”
Fernando De La Torre was standing before him, dressed in the bloodstained white and silver suit of lights he had worn the day he was killed.
“Go away,” Manolo whispered, not wanting Esmeralda to notice this new visitor. “Not now.”
“I don’t want to go,” De La Torre shrugged. “That’s the great thing about being dead. You’re able to be here and there. Say, you really spanked the shit out of that whore.”
Manolo frowned, looking first at the recently deceased matador and then to the girl in the corner, who was sniveling, but in no way aw
are of a new party coming onto the scene. For a long moment there was angry silence, and then it was De La Torre who spoke.
“Granted, I’m at fault for introducing you to this place, but no one twisted your arm to come. Now you’re caught up in the murk just like I was. Just hope Lucinda never finds out. I mean, if you treat her like you do Esmeralda here, I won’t be surprised if you come back to an empty apartment one day. It’s going to happen if you aren’t careful.”
“Shut up,” Manolo pantomimed with his mouth. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Suit yourself,” De La Torre griped. “Oh, by the way, I know what you’re planning next season. I’d get everything you want done before that day is finished up, because Gaditano is going to kill you. That came from the gypsy woman.”
“I hate Gaditano, and I hate that fucking gypsy,” he said aloud, and Esmeralda looked over her shoulder on that one, not sure how to react.
“Still going on about the bull?”
“Yes,” Manolo countered, more relieved De La Torre had vanished than the fact his playmate had heard him ramble on about the hated horned devil. “Look, we got done what we needed to. Come over here and just talk to me.”
Manolo stretched back on the bed, lying on his stomach, but his eyes were now distant.
As before, Esmeralda knelt by the bed, whispering to him.
“You know I love your company, but I really think deeper inside you’re happy with your wife. Maybe happier than you know it. Maybe you should just forget the spankings, like I said and do everyday type sex with her. Give her what she wants, and you might see her be more happy. When she’s happy, I think you’ll both be happier.”
“This sounds peculiar coming from a working girl,” Manolo noted. “This is most irregular.”
“I’m unusual,” Esmeralda added. “Most people, I could care less about. You, I feel for. That’s why I wonder if you would be better off never coming here again and staying with your wife. Sooner or later, she’s goings to figure out what’s going on.”
“You’re the only other one I do it with,” he tried to justify. “No one else.”
“Still…”
“This surely is unusual.”
Manolo shut his eyes, thinking of how he truly did miss his wife back in Mexico City. He had given her everything. Did she not appreciate it? What was wrong with her? So many other women would have eagerly traded places to be in her spot. He could have done a lot more cheating, like De La Torre, if he chose.
“Some people think Gaditano will finally kill me,” he croaked out. Though his mind was racing and should have been on Lucinda, it was reverting back to the devil’s pawn of the Eliseo Manzano ranch.
“So many times people have rambled on about what they desire to happen, and often I have heard men talk of their dreams,” Esmeralda whispered to him. “They build what they think are the castles they want to live in. They put them up a brick at a time. Then, when the building is complete and they think they have gotten what they want, the building caves in on them. Don’t be like that with your castle. This bull could be all wrong for you. Let it go and worry about your wife.”
Manolo shook his head in the negative.
“No,” Esmeralda continued. “She sees it just like I do. I am sure of that.”
“You are a most extraordinary woman,” Manolo countered. He was truly baffled and amazed by her conversation. To this, Esmeralda shrugged.
“No,” he said at long last. “I think we’ll all be better off if I keep making appointments with you when I am in Nogales. I think we will go with that.”
“That’s okay, also,” Esmeralda answered. “That’s okay, too.”
“Are you coming to the bullfight tomorrow?”
Esmeralda nodded.
“And next season when I kill Gaditano? Will you come then?”
“Will your wife be there?”
Manolo shrugged.
“Who knows!”
The matador again fell silent as he thought of his secret rituals which again had been observed. He then considered the appearance of De La Torre. Was he a ghost like in the comic books, or was he simply the product of a stressed mind? It couldn’t have been alcohol, as he was sober.
“Well, sometimes I do think of what I have made and what the bulls have taken from me in return. I have never been gored except that one time. That includes surviving in all the big rings. That’s why I hate Gaditano so much. Something mad came into me that day and beyond. The devil lives in me. I am sure of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve become a bastard as a person. I have drives, and they overwhelm me. At times, I think I have no control anymore. I hate what I have become.”
“Then change.”
Manolo laughed on that one.
“The desire of every man. We all want redemption. We all want change, but it doesn’t come easily.”
“And how will killing Gaditano bring change?”
Manolo thought for a moment.
“It will put everything behind me forever.”
“But this is already behind you,” Esmeralda objected. “The goring happened and you recovered. You don’t get it, but it all could be over if you wished it over. You are the one dragging it all up again.”
“What do you say I eat you?” Manolo offered. “At least then I won’t have to talk about this.”
Esmeralda again rose and offered herself to her host.
“Whatever you want.”
Chapter Eleven
Lucinda was alone in her apartment, watching as the bullfight progressed. The last time something from Nogales had aired, she had seen the death of Fernando De La Torre. She prayed beyond all hope such would not take place again. As a norm for the smaller rings, Nogales cards usually offered two matadors and four bulls. Since this was a benefit for De La Torre’s memory, six bullfighters were on the card facing one animal each. This was a major affair.
The lineup offered Manolo, of course, plus Juan Lorenzo, Emilio Rubio, Emilio Marcos Magnolia, Luis Redondo, and Gomez, who had since gained some recognition and was the last man fighting. He had been with Manolo that day in Hermosillo and beforehand in Ciudad Obregon, which seemed so long ago.
The first four bulls had not been good and the public was restless. Insults poured down, even as Redondo’s beast fell, which seemed unjust, as the man was donating his services for free this day. The public did not seem to care. Clearly, even this was not enough to satisfy the bullring crowd.
“I have an announcement right after I kill this bull today, so come back and I will tell everyone. All I will say now is it has something big to do with Nogales,” Manolo informed the newscaster. “For now, I want to dedicate this performance to my lovely wife, Lucinda, who is at home, and to the memory of my brave colleague, De La Torre.”
The announcement caught Lucinda by surprised on many fronts. While she was stunned Manolo mentioned her this day, she was thrown even more off guard by the announcement he planned to make.
It was then something else came to mind. When he was drunk in Guadalajara, Manolo had uttered something about De La Torre and some place. What was the name of it? Casa something? From time to time, thoughts of this had emerged, but not often. Now, for some reason, they returned.
Something bothered her about the name and sound, but she could not place it.
No matter. The trumpet blasted and Manolo’s bull exploded into the ring, racing about with corral dust still blowing off its back and head held high.
“Have luck,” she whispered, as if somehow through the television Manolo could hear.
Manolo darted out and dropped to his knees, but whatever luck he might have had left him. All Lucinda could do was rise in her chair and scream as the bull slammed straight into his body, lifted him high, and threw him violently against the fence, so hard she was sure she heard boards breaking.
“A farol de…”
The newscaster was about to describe the pass Manolo prepared to do, but had been cut off.
“My God!”
Shades of Hermosillo came to mind again, as she watched Manolo being carried from the ring. Yet suddenly the crowd roared. He was starting to kick his way free, evidently not gored.
“Thank God,” Lucinda sighed aloud, but as she did tears started to materialize in her eyes. It was far too bitter a memory that had returned.
“Thank God.”
Manolo was helped behind the fence, where Rafael tried to revive him. He offered him water from a jug and kept holding his head, asking if he was okay. Manolo gave only a weak nod.
The camera shifted between Manolo, trying to shake off the brutal tossing he had received, and the action in the ring, as the picadores and banderilleros worked. There was speculation as to whether Manolo would be able to complete the performance after all, or if some other matador on the card would finish the bull for him.
Looking much worse for wear, Manolo stepped back into the ring, doffing his hat to indicate he sought permission from the plaza judge to kill the bull. It was a routine gesture.
“Viva Garza!” someone shouted, and the call brought roars from the crowd.
Manolo again slid to his knees, this time holding the smaller red muleta and sword. Kneeling by the fence, he called to the bull and took it past him, making the maneuver work where it had failed with the larger cape some minutes before. Again, the crowd screamed.
“Manolo has always considered Nogales to be a good luck ring for him,” Rafael Gonzalez was saying to the commentator as the fight progressed. “As his manager, I try to have him come here at least twice a year. It is not the biggest of rings, but it is one where he has always done well. Now this bullfight is different because it is in the memory of De La Torre. May God give him peace. As you know, Manolo was on the card with him earlier this season when De La Torre took that horrible goring, and it was Manolo who brought death to the offending bull. That is why this bullfight has special meaning to him.
“And what of his big announcement?”
“I have no idea,” Rafael shrugged. “It is not my doing, as we have no more bookings in Nogales this year.”
Another commentator interrupted from in the stands and proclaimed the obvious, noting how Manolo had the bull under his spell, and pandemonium was the rule of the moment in Nogales.